Working in West Midlands' Prisons, is the working title of our draft workforce report, produced in partnership with regional NHS stakeholders, NOMS, and private sector providers of prison health and substance misuse services.  When complete in September, we will publish the report on our website. 

As you can imagine, from previous posts, the issue of change and delivering services in a different way  is something I am personally involved in. (See blog post Statement on the Future..)  Some initial analysis from our workforce report, shows that there are big differences in the workforce composition between community healthcare and prison healthcare.

Our analysis shows in the community there is 1 Health Care Assistant (HCA)  to every 1.35 nurses, in prison 1 HCA to every 3.57 nurses.  1 administrator to every 1.19 nurses in the community, in prison 1 administrator to every 5.63 nurses.  In prison adult and general nurses make up 50% of the healthcare workforce, in the community just 10%.

Is prison health making the best use of the range of skills and support available in a modern healthcare workforce? 

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