Mental health expertise at prison reception

Brown, Kate, Cullen, Alexis, Kooyman, Iain and Forrester, Andrew ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2510-1249 2014. Mental health expertise at prison reception. Journal of Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology 26 (1) , pp. 107-115. 10.1080/14789949.2014.955810

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Abstract

Although screening has become an established procedure in prison health care, some difficulties persist. In attempts to improve this, many local adaptations have been introduced, but few have been evaluated. We introduced an adaptation – mental health expertise (a Community Psychiatric Nurse, CPN) – into the reception area of a busy remand prison, and compared standard and enhanced assessment procedures over a six-month period. Referrals (n = 67) were significantly more likely to be suitable for onward caseworking by the clinical team after a CPN was introduced. The team showed little evidence of the ‘mission creep’ (where teams operating at a secondary level absorb mental health problems at a primary care level) that has been described elsewhere in the literature. Despite its limitations, this evaluation suggests that prison pathways can be improved by relatively inexpensive local initiatives, and that advancing specific mental health expertise into prison reception areas can enhance existing processes.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	Published
Schools:	Medicine
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
ISSN:	1478-9949
Date of Acceptance:	7 August 2014
Last Modified:	09 Nov 2022 10:29
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/139667

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