PATHWAYS FROM PRISON
SEAMLESS SYSTEMS
Strong partnerships with community teams are just one of the elements needed for successful continuity of care after prison , say Jim Barnard and Avril Culley
A seamless transition from prison to community is important for those prisoners being supported in their recovery from substance misuse . Evidence suggests that prisoners who relapse on release from custody are more likely to reoffend , resulting in a return to custody . It ’ s also important as people being released from prisoners are – in the first six weeks – four times more likely to overdose on opiates , resulting in high drug related deaths in this group . This is something that was recognised by Dame Carol Black ’ s review , which stated the importance of ‘ keeping prisoners engaged in treatment after release – improved engagement of people before they leave prison and better continuity of care into the community .’ Furthermore , it ’ s one of the performance indicators in the public health functions agreement to which NHS England monitor compliance .
At Inclusion we are a provider of both community and prison drug and alcohol services , so we see the issues of continuity of care from both sides of the fence . We always thought we were doing this quite well until the national figures came out , suggesting that the number of people successfully continuing their treatment in the community after leaving prison was only in the mid-30 per cent range . We felt that it was a high priority to improve this , so we tasked our prison and community services with concentrating on this area . This focus was increased when the national target of 75 per cent successful transitions was announced .
PSYCHOSOCIAL INTERVENTIONS The psychosocial intervention ( PSI ) pathway no longer ends when an individual leaves the prison gates – our health in justice ( HIJ ) psychosocial substance misuse teams are committed to ensuring their journey continues into the community when the need is identified . Our teams embraced the wider drug strategy agenda and began monitoring continuity of care , having a keen focus to support success for release – once individuals were released , we started contacting
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