Criminal justice mental health teams were established in The United kingdom in the late nineties of the last century following the publication of the Reed Report 1991.

Two teams were established in South Essex following the geographical locality of each team. Basildon and Thurrock and Southend.

An evaluation form was devised to record all essential areas of assessment.

Twenty five assessment of each team were picked and evaluated randomly over a period of a three months. A comparison was done between the assessment of the two teams.

Referring agency one from the west didn’t mention it

Three of the west didn’t have the index offence;

One of the east and two of the west didn’t have past forensic history.

Three of the west and one of the east didn’t have risk assessment.

One of the west didn’t have summary of concerns

Three of both didn’t mention whether other professionals involved or not.

Comparison between different teams is important to make sure that there is a standard format for assessment and whether it is used in all assessments.

It has been shown that assessments are very good in general in both teams. There are some areas which need to be addressed and managed.

12% of patients on the west didn’t have risk assessment which is very risky.

This comparison has highlighted areas we need to take care off especially risk assessment and liaising with other agencies in managing theses very special group of patients.