Institutional Review

Health Care Needs Profile

A prison service in the midlands commissioned PHAST to undertake a health care needs profile to support the tendering of prison health services for the institution. The needs assessment was to identify the main health needs of the population of the prison and utilise a needs assessment completed in 2005 to compare any changes in the prison populations needs.

The aim was to assess the health care needs of prisoners based at this location with the following objectives:

To review the literature relating to prison health and its generalisability to both the service and independent sector health service provision in prisons
To profile the main health-related issues in the prison including the demography and epidemiology of mortality and morbidity in prisoners
To recommend actions for the Prison Health Partnership Board to inform the tendering process.

Health Needs Assessment

A PCT commissioned PHAST to carry out a health needs assessment to support the tendering of prison services in a prison located in the north of England. The aim of the needs assessment was to assess the health care needs of the prisoners, review the literature, review the current services they were receiving, profile the main health related issues and to recommend actions for the Prison Health Partnership Board to inform the tendering process. The needs assessment methodology was adapted from the 'toolkit' of a local university, designed for prison needs assessments. The main adaptation was simplified data collection as some of the required information was unavailable. There were several phases of the investigation including: background preparatory work, literature review, identification of current service provision, corporate needs assessment, data collection and data analyses, interim report and the final submission including project conclusions and recommendations.