Malcolm Faulk: forensic psychiatrist whose work bridged the gap between the NHS and prisons

Abstract

Malcolm Faulk was a pioneering forensic psychiatrist who was instrumental in the development of regional secure units, which were developed to bridge the gap between prisons and the NHS. In 1972 Faulk was appointed consultant psychiatrist to the Home Office and the Wessex regional health authority—these joint posts were new and they were viewed with suspicion by other staff. Prison doctors saw them as a threat to their authority and NHS psychiatrists worried that their hospitals would be filled with dangerous patients. Faulk and his fellow newly appointed psychiatrists met up regularly, and their self-described “dream” was a system of treatment for disturbed offenders “which would permeate the penal system, dealing with the problems there, supported by clinics and outpatients in the NHS—a unified approach rather than a split one.”1 Faulk described the …