National Preventive Mechanism Sixth Annual Report 2014–15 focused on the theme of autonomy. Lay assessors were introduced to the inspection process as well as easy-to-read patient questionnaires and observation tools. A further 66 patient experience inspections were undertaken to meet with and offer interviews to patients in mental health wards, including wards for people with dementia, children and adolescent mental health wards and to patients in learning disability wards. More than 75% of wards demonstrated compliance or substantial compliance with expectations related to therapeutic and recreational activity, information about rights and discharge planning. Inspection findings showed lower levels of compliance with respect to capacity and consent, individualised assessment and management of need and risk, and restriction and deprivation of liberty. RQIA also conducted joint inspections of Magilligan Prison, Woodlands Juvenile Justice Centre and monitoring visits in relation to the Prison Review Team’s work. NPM sub-groups NPM children and young people’s sub-group The children and young people’s sub-group, hosted by CCE, continued to meet quarterly as a forum for coordinating action and sharing intelligence and information on issues concerning the work of NPM members on children in detention across the UK. During the year, the sub-group focused on de facto detention (discussing possible gaps and overlaps in the inspection regime across settings, the different legal framework for children, the possibility that it arises in 60 non‑detention settings), vulnerable people in police custody (based on the findings from a thematic inspection led by HMIC), isolation and solitary confinement, the proposed new framework for Ofsted/HMI Prisons inspections of secure training centres (STCs), and the results of the HMI Prisons/YJB survey of young people in custody. Following an evaluation of the children and young people’s sub-group in 2014, it was recommended that it focus on agreeing action points where value can be added, as well as joint work on the strategic priority issues agreed by the NPM as a whole, with specific reference to children. NPM Scottish sub-group The first meetings of the Scottish sub‑group were held in October 2014 and February 2015, with a Director of the Scottish Government invited to attend each. Members of the sub-group conducted peer reviews of each other's NPM self‑assessments. Plans for the sub-group’s work in 2015–16 include increasing the impact of the work of the NPM in Scotland. NPM mental health network The first two meetings of the mental health network focused on the ways its members will work together, and established a clear purpose and set of common objectives for the group. The group will coordinate approaches, enable peer reviews and share resources for research, training and development. In March 2015, members of the mental health network attended a human rights workshop convened by CQC, discussing research on the strategy and practices for keeping mental health detention settings under review.