Section two Focus on detention issues These recommendations were made with the English system in mind, but their implementation across the four nations of the UK should be considered. mental health needs mean the failure to transfer them to a place where they can receive treatment in an appropriate setting is a risk factor in potential ill-treatment. The NPM agrees with the need to review the current 14-day guideline, but this should be done with a view to removing the obstacles to its implementation and reducing it further in future (as recommended by the CPT), rather than extending the time period in response to current delays. In addition, stronger mechanisms are needed to ensure transfer assessments cannot be delayed as a means of postponing the start of the 14-day guideline. There are inevitable challenges posed by different detention systems operating to different legislation and under the responsibility of different governments and departments. In addition, the diversification of commissioning arrangements and models of service delivery have led to geographical variations in services and competing or conflicting interests, all of which can complicate the pathway of the detainee to an appropriate facility. Conclusions For an individual detainee, a period of deprivation of liberty is likely to involve moving through well-trodden pathways through detention (police custody to court custody to prison; medium secure hospital to low secure unit). But for many other detainees, it will also include moving between a range of facilities in response to their individual situation and needs (child to adult facilities; prison to mental health hospital). There is a concerning lack of data about detention pathways and the numbers of people moving through them. Their complexity makes them difficult to understand and therefore difficult to scrutinise. Initial decisions to detain focus on the immediate destination, but the individual experience will cover a range of settings and facilities over time. The NPM’s work looking at pathways in detention illustrates an often fragmented system that struggles to facilitate the pathways needed to ensure detainees are able to move around in response to their changing needs, or to ensure that detainees are held in the most appropriate location. We highlight a range of situations in which detainees’ changing Most of the pathways NPM members examined concern detainees with mental health problems. Although understanding of the problems of mental ill-health and needs in detention has grown over the last decade, this has not always led to action to match the need for smooth pathways between types of detention and sufficient capacity within the system as a whole to facilitate movement. As a result of the current challenges, there are many people detained in unsuitable locations whose mental health may be deteriorating further as a result, and many people detained in overly restrictive detention settings rather than progressing towards eventual release from detention. In many instances, the NPM’s research showed 47