This week we published 2 documents, Working in West Midlands' Prisons and Supporting Women with Mental Health Issues.

The first document, provided information from a staff survey and data analysis, the second case studies showing how 3rd sector organisations support women to improve their mental health and well-being.

The challenge for us all, is to plan how to turn these reports into local actions. It will be local actions that will be the only way to ensure changes happen over the coming months and years....

It is difficult to blog and share with you our plans for the future when there is such great uncertainty about the future within the NHS. We anticipate that the feedback from the consultation of the governments white paper on Equality and Excellence: Liberating the NHS will provide more information. This is due in earyl December.

However it does not mean we are doing nothing.  Last week we got some good informal feedback from West Midlands Police about the place of safety work following an unannounced inspection from the police and health inspectors, we also received feedback from the National Police Improvement Agency about a programme of mental health and learning disability training that they are rolling out to police officers.

In this week's blog, a quick chance to share some of the information about what this means for the offender healthcare.

The RCN has identified that in the NHS 10,000 jobs would go, from recruitment freezes, not replacing retiring staff and redundancies. HM Treasury highlights about 500,000 jobs to go in the public sector, the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development feels this is an underestimate and 750,000 jobs will go. (See here)

We are working on a 0% flat cash approach to prison health budgets, taking into account the staff pay freeze, drug costs increase and other external cost increases this will be a budget cut in real terms.

All I can urge you to do, is to think and take action now, procrastinating until another day could make the changes you will have to make even greater.

Later this afternoon the region will announce its first ever winner of the Offender Health and Social Care Award in the West Midlands. 

Not everyone can win an award, and we only run this once a year, but everyone can make a difference.

We'd be quite happy to hear your thoughts on how you have made a difference, we'd be happy to share what you have achieved with others on this site. Do get in touch and let us know.

I wonder if the general public subscribe to the view that prison is one big party?  On Friday the lady who cut my hair, certainly held this view. It isn't a hardship she told me, "they have TVs, play stations, 3 hot meals a day.  If it was up to me I'd throw away the key and let them rot!"  We disagreed and she told me I was wrong, because lots of the local prison officers come into the same place and they all say it is a party.

Having got passed this initial dumping of all her values across the salon floor, much like my greying hair.  We continued to talk through why I do the job I do.