IAPDC presents strategy on preventing deaths to the Home Office

The Independent Advisory Panel on Deaths in Custody (IAPDC) has this month written to the Home Office to submit a report on suggested priorities for a prevention of death strategy in Immigration Removal Centres.

In 2018, the Home Office asked the IAPDC to provide advice on issues pertaining to deaths, ‘near misses’, and incidents of serious self-harm in immigration detention. This request was made in support of three recommendations relating to deaths in detention made by Stephen Shaw in his independent Review into the Welfare in Detention of Vulnerable Persons in 2016. These were:

  • Recommendation 34: The Home Office should review whether figures relating to deaths in and after detention should be issued on a regular basis.

  • Recommendation 37: That the Home Office commission research into deaths in immigration detention, ‘near misses’ and incidents of serious self-harm.

  • Recommendation 38: The Home Office should devise and publish a strategy for reducing the number of deaths from natural causes and those that are self-inflicted in, and shortly after, immigration detention.

ImmigrationAdrian Blake