Description

During November 1999 January 2000 the London Health

Authorities were required to jointly assess the health needs

of their local prisoners with prison health staff. Her Majestys

Prison Belmarsh is in Woolwich South East London, it provides

local prison, remand and high security facilities. The Health

Authority and prison jointly established a needs assessment

project team who identified the following priorities for improvements

in the prison health services:

Development of a new health information technology system.

Staff reprofiling.

Establishment of a designated Primary Care Team and practice

manager post.

Establishment of a Community Mental Health Team for the

prison.

Improvements in the physical environment of the health

care areas.

Implementation of protocols for the treatment and prevention

of blood borne viruses within the prison.

Empowerment of prisoners to manage their own health.

The action plan for implementation of improvements to the

prison health services has been agreed and is briefly presented.

The work done at HMP Belmarsh was part of a pilot of the needs

assessment process. It is hoped that this paper will help

others who must now embark on a similar project.