Revolving Doors in consortium to support roll out of liaison and diversion services

Revolving Doors has been appointed to support the government’s Health and Criminal Justice Liaison and Diversion programme over the next three years as part of the Offender Health Collaborative.

Coalition ministers have committed to ensuring that there are liaison and diversion services at all police custody suites and courts and have commited £19.4 million this year to developing and extending existing services. Under the new contract with the Department of Health, announced last week, the Offender Health Collaborative will work with local schemes to develop good practice guidance, set out quality standards, and support workforce development as well as reviewing and testing different models of commissioning and provision of liaison and diversion services. This will be achieved via a network of liaison and diversion schemes across England.

The Collaborative is a consortium led by Nacro and comprises of Revolving Doors Agency, Centre for Mental Health, NHS Confederation, Cass Business School and the Institute for Mental Health at the University of Nottingham. It has been selected to support the cross-government Health and Criminal Justice Transition Programme in managing the National Liaison and Diversion Development Network.

Dominic Williamson, Revolving Doors' chief executive, said: “The national roll-out of criminal justice liaison and diversion services is a fantastic opportunity to get help to people who are often falling between the gaps in services. We will be working to ensure that people with multiple unmet needs including poor mental health and learning disabilities, who are in contact with the police or courts, are helped to access the support and treatment they need. We are delighted to be contributing to this work with our partners in the Offender Health Consortium, working with the government and service providers.”

Minister of State for Care Services, Paul Burstow said: “These services are fundamental to the identification and assessment of offenders with health needs and other vulnerabilities, to engage offenders with appropriate health and social care services and to ensure that key decision makers within criminal justice agencies have all relevant heath information to make more informed decisions... The wealth of knowledge and expertise that these organisations bring will help shape the development of a national liaison and diversion service that aims to reduce re-offending and to improve health outcomes for this cohort of the offender population.”

Revolving Doors recently completed an analysis of criminal justice liaison and diversion services in the North East region. You can read the report here.

More details about the development network will be available shortly on our website. You can download the official press release here.