Quality Standards for Healthcare Professionals Working with Victims of Torture in Detention
The healthcare of those in detention who have been tortured or subject to inhuman or degrading treatment has long been the subject of international interest.
The Mandela rules (the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners), as well as guidance from the UN Istanbul Protocol, the World Medical Association and the Council of Europe, lay out the basic principles that should be applied. The Faculty of Forensic and Legal Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians (FFLM) is the government recognized standard setting institution for healthcare in police detention in the UK.
In 2016 the FFLM, seeking to build on these principles, set up a working group to draft the first set of detailed quality standards for this area of healthcare. This document is the result. It addresses the specific vulnerabilities of victims of torture in detention and sets out for the healthcare professional not only what should be done, but why, how, and how we can know that it has been done.
Click on the download link below to read the full standards.