Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what protocols her Department has in place on the dispensing of medication to prisoners who are HIV positive.

HIV medication is initiated by a specialist in specialist services, and prison healthcare and pharmacy teams liaise with them to ensure continuity of care. A shared care agreement would be put in place to ensure continuity of care and appropriate monitoring. Any medication listed under the National Health Service high cost commissioning list is accessed via specialist commissioning routes, and delivered directly to the healthcare team at the prison. Any medication not listed as high cost will be dispensed in the usual way, via the healthcare dispensing services.

Healthcare teams within prisons ensure the appropriate monitoring is in place, and that there is ongoing continuity in medication throughout the patient’s stay at the prison. Protocols are in place to ensure that medications will transfer with the patient either on release or when being transferred to another prison establishment.