Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to improve the quality of healthcare provision across the prison estate.

NHS England’s Health and Justice Oversight Delivery Group is responsible for governance and oversight of delivery and continuous improvement in health and justice commissioned services.

NHS England, via the regional health and justice teams, has regular meetings with prison healthcare providers to ensure the quality of the services that are provided.  These are also supplemented with local partnership boards, where governors, commissioners, and providers meet to discuss any issues, risks, and areas of concern.

NHS England also works closely with the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman to identify themes, trends, and learning from recommendations made as part of the investigations into deaths in custody, and also takes learning and insights around preventable events from preventing future deaths reports and commissioner-led complaints.

NHS England is undertaking a review of health and justice service specifications to ensure they remain fit for purpose in relation to patient needs, developments in health and justice, and the wider National Health Service. This review includes engagement with lived experience, commissioners, providers, clinical leads, partner organisations, and stakeholders, along with NHS England directorates. This review of service specifications may also provide opportunities for the improvement of the provision of services. It is expected that publication of the refreshed specifications will start in 2025, and will be fully complete by the end of March 2026.