Source · Select Committees · Justice Committee
Recommendation 45
45
Accepted
Publish regular, transparent data on prison healthcare access and outcomes for accountability
Recommendation
NHS England, or its successor, should publish regular, transparent data on healthcare access and outcomes across the prison estate. This data should be used to monitor progress against the principle of equivalence and to hold both NHS England or its successor and HMPPS accountable for delivering effective, joined-up care. (Recommendation, Paragraph 204)
Government Response Summary
The government accepted the recommendation, committing to ensuring equivalent healthcare standards and noting NHSE's re-procurement of digital systems by early 2026 to capture data on healthcare access and outcomes. NHS England will update the Committee on plans to publish new data by April 2026.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
Accept. As with recommendation 24, we are committed to ensuring that people in prison have access to an equivalent standard, range and quality of health care in prisons to that available in the wider community. This is reflected in the National Partnership Agreement on Health and Social Care in England, published in February 2023. The recently published Chief Medical Officer Report agreed and highlights that Health data are essential for safe, high-quality care, research, surveillance and planning of health services inside and outside prison. The report notes that there are also many IT systems that sit across multiple government departments and organisations relevant to healthcare and many of these systems cannot communicate with one another. NHSE is undertaking a re-procurement of the current Integrated Clinical Digital systems early in 2026, this will include requirements for interoperability with criminal justice systems, as well as other community health systems such as NDTMS to ensure we are able to capture a transparent picture of access to health care and patient outcomes. Additionally, HMPPS 2025/26 regime priorities set out that prison regimes should ensure that they drive overall improvement in health and wellbeing provision. HMPPS are exploring opportunities to better capture data on healthcare attendance and ensuring that individual’s healthcare needs are appropriately prioritised. NHS England will work in partnership with HMPPS to provide the Committee with an update on our plans to publish new health care access and outcomes data by April 2026.