HOME OFFICE policies intended to identify and release vulnerable people, including torture survivors, from immigration detention centres are “so ineffective, they are basically fictional,” according to a new report.
Safeguards exist to prevent the detention of vulnerable adults who would be at risk of harm if locked up, except in certain circumstances.
However, a report by the Medical Justice charity, published this week, finds the Home Office’s safeguarding mechanism to be “utterly and totally flawed.”
This is resulting in torture survivors and mentally ill and suicidal people being held in detention centres for long periods, the group warns.
The charity, which works to improve the health of immigration detainees, based its findings on independent medical assessments of 45 individuals held in various detention centres between July and December last year. Only one of them was released.
All those assessed were found to be at risk of “clinical harm” due to their detention.
Over 80 per cent had experienced a deterioration in their mental health and 87 per cent were suicidal or self-harming.
Healthcare teams working in the detention facilities failed to pick up these vulnerabilities, the report says.
In breach of Home Office policy, only 51 per cent of inmates was seen by a GP on site within 24 hours of entering the detention centre.
Even when Medical Justice notified the Home Office about their clients’ vulnerabilities, case workers “showed a failure to release people recognised as at heightened risk in detention, including a high proportion of torture survivors,” the report says.
One man, who was detained for four months despite being a torture survivor, said: “My health was getting worse in detention. I felt like I couldn’t live any more. They knew what was happening to me, that I needed help.
“There is no help. Ask healthcare, they blame it on the Home Office and the Home Office will in turn blame healthcare. It feels like you are buried alive.”
Medical Justice fears that ongoing “gross” failures by the Home Office to safeguard detainees could put vulnerable people at risk of being sent to Rwanda.
The Home Office said that it does not recognise the report’s findings, adding that all immigration detention centres have dedicated health facilities run by doctors and nurses, who provide mental health support to NHS England standards.
