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Prison healthcare staff and governors
are now working in collaboration with Primary Care Trusts
and Health Authorities to jointly provide health services
of an equivalent standard to services outside prison. In mental
health, this means working to meet the standards set out in
the National Service Framework. Thus, the role of primary-care
staff in prisons can be summarised as:
- Supporting the governor and
other staff to develop an environment that supports mental
health and well-being (Standard 1).
- Identifying prisoners with
mental and substance abuse disorders (Standard 2).
- Managing prisoners with common
mental disorders eg depression (Standard 2).
- Referring appropriately for
assessment, advice or treatment (Standard 2).
- Working with diverse groups
of patients from many different cultures.
- Providing information and
guidance for those who provide regular and substantial care
for prisoners with mental-health problems - in prison, often
staff as well as family members (Standard 6).
- Contributing to the multidisciplinary
work to prevent suicide (Standard 7).
The Guide provides information
that supports all the activities listed above. However, health
services in prisons are currently in transition. This is reflected
in the Guide which includes information:
- about psychological therapies
that have been shown to be effective for certain conditions,
even though some (perhaps many) prison healthcare staff
may not have access to these at the moment
- for generalists to help them
in roles that go beyond those expected of primary-care staff
outside prisons - for example, advice for generalist nurses
working with acutely mentally ill patients in an in-patient
setting. We have not, however, included information about
running an in-patient Mental Health Unit, even though there
are, at the moment, still some such units in prisons that
are managed on a day-to-day basis by generalist healthcare
staff.
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