Resources for Secure Environments

Providing healthcare in secure environments such as prisons, secure hospitals, young offender institutions and immigration removal centres presents unique challenges for GPs and primary care professional. The RCGP Healthcare in Secure Environments project team has drawn together a comprehensive set of weblinks to provide sources of information to support healthcare professionals working in secure environments.

Providing healthcare in secure environments such as prisons, secure hospitals, young offender institutions, secure training centres and immigration removal centres presents unique challenges for GPs, nurses, pharmacy teams, other primary care and allied health professionals. It also provides unique opportunities for multi-disciplinary team working.

People in secure environments often have multiple complex physical health, mental health and substance misuse needs that exceed those of people living in the community. These issues can be compounded by social determinants that drive health inequalities, such as  homelessness, unemployment, financial insecurity and debt, social isolation and poor access to or reluctance to engage with health services appropriate to their needs. Secure environments can exacerbate some of these challenges or provide an opportunity to address them. 

Improving and better addressing the mental health, physical health and substance misuse needs of people in secure environments has the potential to improve their quality of life while inside and have a lasting impact on their health beyond release. This will have a further positive impact on the wider community.

The Healthcare in Secure Environments project team has created resources to assist clinicians starting out in secure environment healthcare which will be published over the coming months. They have also drawn together a comprehensive set of weblinks to provide sources of information for healthcare professionals working in secure environments. 

The RCGP Secure Environment Group would like to set up a dynamic learning environment as part of the Healthcare in Secure Environments project in to:

• Share best practice and quality improvement initiatives
• Facilitate connection and exchange of clinical advice
• Discuss current issues and policies
• Facilitate sharing of policies, procedures and guidelines