A nationwide strategy is needed for elderly inmates, says the report

About 1,700 prisoners are aged over 60 and Anne Owers' said many jails were not set up to cope with their needs.

She highlighted a number of failings, including prisoners with mobility problems being given top bunks and inadequate health screening for women.

The Department of Health said it recognised the issues raised.

Ms Owers called on the National Offender Management Service and the Department of Health to introduce a nationwide strategy for assessing and providing for elderly inmates' needs.

'Widespread depression'

Her report - No Problems, Old and Quiet: Older Prisoners in England and Wales - showed that male over-60 prisoners were the fastest growing sector of the jail population. From 1992 to 2002, they increased from 442 to 1,359 .

It also revealed that by 2002, there were 156 women aged over 50 in prison - two-and-a-half times the number of 10 years earlier.

Among the problems Ms Owers found were:

• Inmates with mobility problems being allocated to upper bunk beds - and sometimes falling out

• A prisoner in a wheelchair who was able to bathe only once a month

• Prisoners with incontinence struggling with night sanitation

• Around 30% of elderly prisoners do not feel safe

• Inadequate arrangements for deciding whether terminally-ill inmates can be released

• Widespread problems with depression, which often go unrecognised

• Health screening for middle-aged women, such as mammograms, is not being carried out systematically

Recommendations in the report included setting up a prisoner carer scheme, which would train some prisoners in personal social care skills and then allow them to, under supervision, help older inmates.

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Other suggestions were a programme to provide suitable accommodation, better staff training and greater co-operation between prisons, the NHS, social services and other agencies.

The inspection team also found that prison staff were often reluctant to push wheelchairs and that some prisoners were helped by fellow inmates, but often had to pay for the help in kind with chocolate or tobacco.

Ms Owers said: "Prisons need to protect the public, but in doing so they must gear themselves to meet the needs of an older and ageing population, some of whom will, in practice, spend the rest of their lives in prison."

'Double punishment'

Geoff Dobson, deputy director of the Prison Reform Trust, welcomed the report.

"It is quite clear that until government responds to the complex needs of older people in our prisons, they will continue to experience an unjust form of double punishment."

A Department of Health spokesperson said: "Where the NHS commissions services for older prisoners, it expects the same standards as laid out in the National Service Framework for older people, to be applied regardless.