Worsening of pre-existing health needs
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In addition to the direct harms caused by detention, many people enter detention with existing complex health needs which are worsened because of detention.
The environment of detention prevents identification of people with pre-existing health needs. Medical Justice explain that:
“Many detainees, because of past or present trauma, have complex health needs and find it difficult to access healthcare and this is exacerbated by short consultations, late screenings, poor use of interpreters, poor clinical assessments, and lack of adherence to clinical protocols.” (Medical Justice, 2015)[1]
These longstanding concerns were borne out by the (2024) which found continued evidence of these issues, including poor clinical assessments, inadequate screening, inappropriate use of interpreters and lack of observance of clinical and safeguarding protocols.
For people with mental ill health, there is recognition that access to treatment for these conditions is fundamentally constrained by the nature of detention. The 2021 Position Statement of the Royal College of Psychiatrists states:
“… we remain concerned about the limited nature and extent of the mental health care that can be provided in the immigration detention setting. Furthermore, treatment of mental illness requires a holistic approach and continuity of care; it is not just the treatment of an episode of mental ill health but an ongoing therapeutic input focusing on recovery and relapse prevention. Psychotropic medication by itself is very unlikely to achieve good outcomes unless it is given as part of a broader multi-modal therapeutic approach. Detention also severs the links with family and social support networks, adversely affecting recovery. For these reasons, the recovery model cannot be implemented effectively in a detention centre setting.”
[1] Medical Justice, (2015), Healthcare in detention: Written evidence submitted by Medical Justice to the Shaw Review. Available at
