Chloe Hayward was pleased to be invited to speak with Ministers for Justice, Rory Stewart and Edward Argar at Westminster today alongside the Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Acquired Brain Injury, Chris Bryant, MP, Dr Ivan Pitman from The Disabilities Trust and Professor Nathan Hughes from the University of Sheffield. The meeting followed questions raised by Chris Bryant in the House of Commons concerning the high prevalence of brain injury in prisons and the need for better screening and training.

Dr Ivan Pitman talked about screening, linkworkers and interventions made by the Disabilities Trust in adult prison settings. Rory Stewart asked many questions about the nature of neurorehabilitation, the effects of brain injury on behaviour and how to integrate future work with current systems.

Edward Argar raised the problem of data linkage which is a longstanding issue for researchers working in this area. Professor Nathan Hughes confirmed there is good data from Comprehensive Health Assessments used in the Youth Justice System but there is no easy way to link it to offending data.

Both Ministers expressed an interest in finding out more about neurorehabilitation in prison and youth justice settings.

The meeting follows the launch of a report Time for Change launched by the All Party Parliamentary Group for Acquired Brain Injury on 10 October 2018. A full copy of the report is available here.