An Albanian who was being held in a psychiatric hospital in England was sent directly from the hospital on a deportation flight by the Home Office.

The Independent Monitoring Boards (IMB), a watchdog for prisons and immigration removal centres, raised concerns about the incident last summer in its annual report published on Thursday according to The Guardian.

According to the report, the removal papers were handed to the man at the hospital by a doctor there and not by a Home Office official.

The man signed the release papers, but IMB monitors said they were unsure he knew what he was signing – all the documents were in English and they were unclear about his level of comprehension.

When he was removed from the psychiatric unit, he was made to wait in a Home Office van before boarding a plane to Albania.

When monitors asked the Home Office about the incident, officials said it was in line with published policies, but did not engage further with the concerns raised.