Deaths at UK immigration detention centres are the result of avoidable systemic failures, report says

High numbers of avoidable deaths have continued to occur within UK immigration detention centres because the Home Office and NHS England have not tackled systemic failings in healthcare provision, a report has said.

The report by Medical Justice, an organisation that campaigns for health rights for detainees, included an extensive assessment of the 38 deaths in immigration detention centres in the UK that were reported between 2000 and 2015, and has said that some of these deaths were avoidable.

“In around half the investigations the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman directly criticised healthcare provisions with many of the same systemic failures repeated year after …