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Primary medical care in Irish prisons

BACKGROUND: An industrial dispute between prison doctors and the Irish Prison Service (IPS) took place in 2004. Part of the resolution of that dispute was that an independent review of prison medical and support services be carried out by a University Department of Primary Care. The review took plac...

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Autores principales: Barry, Joe M, Darker, Catherine D, Thomas, David E, Allwright, Shane PA, O'Dowd, Tom
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2010
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2853535/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20307311
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-10-74
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author Barry, Joe M
Darker, Catherine D
Thomas, David E
Allwright, Shane PA
O'Dowd, Tom
author_facet Barry, Joe M
Darker, Catherine D
Thomas, David E
Allwright, Shane PA
O'Dowd, Tom
author_sort Barry, Joe M
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: An industrial dispute between prison doctors and the Irish Prison Service (IPS) took place in 2004. Part of the resolution of that dispute was that an independent review of prison medical and support services be carried out by a University Department of Primary Care. The review took place in 2008 and we report here on the principal findings of that review. METHODS: This study utilised a mixed methods approach. An independent expert medical evaluator (one of the authors, DT) inspected the medical facilities, equipment and relevant custodial areas in eleven of the fourteen prisons within the IPS. Semistructured interviews took place with personnel who had operational responsibility for delivery of prison medical care. Prison doctors completed a questionnaire to elicit issues such as allocation of clinician's time, nurse and administrative support and resources available. RESULTS: There was wide variation in the standard of medical facilities and infrastructure provided across the IPS. The range of medical equipment available was generally below that of the equivalent general practice scheme in the community. There is inequality within the system with regard to the ratio of doctor-contracted time relative to the size of the prison population. There is limited administrative support, with the majority of prisons not having a medical secretary. There are few psychiatric or counselling sessions available. CONCLUSIONS: People in prison have a wide range of medical care needs and there is evidence to suggest that these needs are being met inconsistently in Irish prisons.
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spelling pubmed-28535352010-04-13 Primary medical care in Irish prisons Barry, Joe M Darker, Catherine D Thomas, David E Allwright, Shane PA O'Dowd, Tom BMC Health Serv Res Research article BACKGROUND: An industrial dispute between prison doctors and the Irish Prison Service (IPS) took place in 2004. Part of the resolution of that dispute was that an independent review of prison medical and support services be carried out by a University Department of Primary Care. The review took place in 2008 and we report here on the principal findings of that review. METHODS: This study utilised a mixed methods approach. An independent expert medical evaluator (one of the authors, DT) inspected the medical facilities, equipment and relevant custodial areas in eleven of the fourteen prisons within the IPS. Semistructured interviews took place with personnel who had operational responsibility for delivery of prison medical care. Prison doctors completed a questionnaire to elicit issues such as allocation of clinician's time, nurse and administrative support and resources available. RESULTS: There was wide variation in the standard of medical facilities and infrastructure provided across the IPS. The range of medical equipment available was generally below that of the equivalent general practice scheme in the community. There is inequality within the system with regard to the ratio of doctor-contracted time relative to the size of the prison population. There is limited administrative support, with the majority of prisons not having a medical secretary. There are few psychiatric or counselling sessions available. CONCLUSIONS: People in prison have a wide range of medical care needs and there is evidence to suggest that these needs are being met inconsistently in Irish prisons. BioMed Central 2010-03-22 /pmc/articles/PMC2853535/ /pubmed/20307311 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-10-74 Text en Copyright ©2010 Barry et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research article
Barry, Joe M
Darker, Catherine D
Thomas, David E
Allwright, Shane PA
O'Dowd, Tom
Primary medical care in Irish prisons
title Primary medical care in Irish prisons
title_full Primary medical care in Irish prisons
title_fullStr Primary medical care in Irish prisons
title_full_unstemmed Primary medical care in Irish prisons
title_short Primary medical care in Irish prisons
title_sort primary medical care in irish prisons
topic Research article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2853535/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20307311
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-10-74
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