MAPPA and mental health — 10 years of controversy

Abstract

SummaryMultiagency public protection arrangements (MAPPAs) were established in England and Wales 10 years ago to oversee statutory arrangements for public protection by the identification, assessment and management of high-risk offenders. This article reviews MAPPAs' relationship with mental health services over the past decade. Despite areas of progress in the management of mentally ill offenders, inconsistent practice persists regarding issues of confidentiality and information-sharing between agencies, which calls for clearer and more consistent guidance from the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Ministry of Justice and the Department of Health.

‘Enhanced Support for High Intensity Users of the Criminal Justice System’: An Evaluation of Mental Health Nurse Input into Integrated Offender Management Services in the North East of England

“…Prior to MH nursing input, the issues faced by the NE IOM teams when attempting to access support and treatment for offenders with mental health problems mirrored those facing services generally as reported in a number of publications (Anderson, 2011; Stevenson et al ., 2011; Yakeley et al ., 2012; Campbell and Abbott, 2013), including lack of interagency cooperation and communication, and an unwillingness to intervene or offer a timely service: I can recall offenders over the last two or three years where the lack of health information and engagement has meant that they’ve gone on to reoffend, some quite seriously . .…”

“…However a recent IOM survey reported that the NHS was least likely to be involved from a list of agencies reported to be involved in local IOM arrangements (Home Office, 2013 p.4). The Home Office survey makes no attempt to explain why the NHS has limited involvement -has it simply not crossed anyone's mind, were invites sent but declined, or despite significant evidence to the contrary (Robinson and Cottrell, 2005;Bradley, 2009;Williams, 2009;Hean, et al, 2011;Yakeley et al, 2012), do agencies continue to assume that some vague nod towards 'inter-agency cooperation' means that those who need it will be referred to and consequently receive mental health service input? The challenges of partnership working particularly across the care-control divide, including: models of understanding, roles, identities, status and power, and information sharing; are generally well documented but according to Williams (2009) had not been addressed by government interventions.…”

“…Prior to MH nursing input the issues faced by the NE IOM teams when attempting to access support and treatment for offenders with mental health problems mirrored those facing services generally as reported in a number of publications (Anderson, 2011;Stevenson et al, 2011;Yakeley et al, 2012;Campbell and Abbott, 2013) In order to meet these challenges the IOM-MH service was designed to focus on early intervention and prevention through the provision of comprehensive, intensive and consistent MH support -rather than being crisis focused. The service provided a MH nurse co-located full-time with each of the two IOM teams.…”

Community forensic psychiatric services in England and Wales

“…MAPPA came into effect in 2001 and represented an attempt to minimize the harm caused by high-risk violent and sexual offenders in the community. 46 The legislation placed a duty on police, probation, and prison services (as the "responsible authority") in each region, to set up risk management arrangements, involving relevant agencies, with a focus on information sharing. The aim of MAPPA is not primarily to manage mentally disordered offenders but equally people with mental disorder are not excluded from their remit.…”

Risk Assessment and Manage- ment of Violence in Patients with Mental Disorders: A Re- view

“…To combine these solutions for each unique case, functional collaboration among multiple facets of organization, including police, probation offices, court, medical practitioners, and social work staff, is necessary. Multiagency public protection arrangements in England and Wales are an example of trans-organizational team work for risk management [68].…”