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Toolkit for health care needs assessment in prisons

  • Document type:
    Publication
  • Author:
    Marshall, Dr Tom; Simpson, Dr Sue; Stevens, Prof Andrew (University of Birmingham)
  • Published date:
    1 January 2000
  • Primary audience:
    Professionals
  • Gateway reference:
    2000
  • Pages:
    33
  • Copyright holder:
    Crown Copyright

This document is aimed at those who are responsible for planning and commissioning health care within the prison service. This includes prison governors, prison health care staff and local NHS health care commissioners (Primary Care Groups and health authorities). These bodies will be responsible for assessing the health care needs of their prison populations. However, it should be noted that health care needs assessments can be and are carried out on a much larger scale, for example, at national and regional level.

Prisoners present diverse health problems. When they seek formal health care, the prison health care service is normally their first point of contact. Demand for health care often appears to outstrip the capacity of services. The Health Care Needs Assessment approach deals with this problem by differentiating between needs and demands for health care services.

This distinction is explained in more detail. It builds up a picture of needs by taking into account numbers of prisoners with problems and the effectiveness of services. Its methods are both formal and informal. Adopting this approach is intended to help prison health services plan their health care provision and move towards a service which will tackle needs systematically rather than reacting to demand.

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