An agreement to transport prisoners with severe mental health problems to England will only be used in the "most exceptional" of cases.

According to Health Minister Walter Roban no one at the moment needs this level of mental health service. But once a recent agreement is finalised there will be a way for future inmates to get psychiatric help in the UK.

Government and the Bermuda Hospitals Board signed a "statement of intent" with the Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust on October 8. Once the agreement is signed the Trust will provide care for the prisoners at its Reaside Clinic in Rubery, West Midlands.

Mentally ill inmates are said to make up 12 to 15 percent of Bermuda's prison population.

The announcement comes after schizophrenic inmate Lorenzo Robinson committed suicide in Westgate in July 2008.

Mr. Robinson had battled for six years to secure specialist overseas treatment that experts said he needed.

Minister Roban said: "No one at the time is requiring these services, but again situations change but we are happy we have this letter of intent established so that when we finalise the agreement we have a regime now that we can do what we need to do if the circumstances arose."

Inmates with severe mental illness are classified as those with schizophrenia and bipolar disease, said Chief of Psychiatry Michael Radford yesterday.

"In the last 40 years there have been about four such needs. It's not a large number, but it's a group of people we have failed in the past."

Labour Minister David Burch said people with less severe mental health problems were able to be treated locally at the Mid Atlantic Wellness Institute.

"The agreement is to address those with the most severe psychiatric illness and its also fair to say we have an outstanding psychiatric facility on Island that currently provides service to inmates that is of a standard that is acceptable."

Minister Roban said Government's new mental health plan would deal with other mental health issues and address the need for psychological services in the community, starting at an early age.

He said: "One of the emphases of the plan is on youth services. That is a very heavy feature of the mental health plan in providing support where it hasn't been before for our young people as early as those entering school, and those resources will be committed to rolling out that plan as soon as time will permit."

He was unable to answer questions about how much the programme would cost, how the inmates would be transferred to the UK and how long the treatment would last.

Minister Roban said these details would be "ironed out" once the agreement was formalised "in the coming days".