Safety recommendation
It is recommended that NHS England/Improvement (NHS E/I) health and justice national commissioning team review how they monitor and assure the provision of healthcare in prisons to reduce variability in standards, particularly in the areas of incident reporting and investigations.
Response:
NHS E/I expect all providers to comply with the requirements set out in the NHS Standard Contract 2019/20 SC33: Incidents Requiring Reporting, which includes compliance with the NHS Serious Incident Framework (2015). The responsibility and assurance of contract compliance is delegated to the regional health and justice (H&J) commissioners.
In July 2019 NHS E/I H&J corporate team published Quality First: Quality Assurance and Improvement Framework for Health and Justice and SARCs. Section 4.1 of this framework covers Serious Incident reporting and management and states:
"Commissioners are accountable for quality assuring the robustness of their providers’ serious incident investigations and the development and implementation of effective actions by the provider, to prevent recurrence of similar incidents. Regional teams should ensure there are clear processes in place to support this."
This framework also includes information on the quality schedules developed annually which provide a national set of quality reporting requirements for health and justice services.
Under the NHS E/I Joint Working Programme we are in transition to the new operating model and a seven regional team structure. As part of this transformation, regional teams are developing their governance arrangements for all directly commissioned services, including health and justice. The Specialised Commissioning and H&J Strategy Group, chaired by the National Director for Transformation and Delivery, oversees the development and implementation of the governance arrangements which includes regional monitoring and assurance of prison healthcare provision.
The NHS Patient Safety Strategy, published in July 2019, sets out the focus for patient safety in the NHS as we deliver the NHS Long-Term Plan through the emerging local healthcare systems. The regional teams will support this delivery. The strategy highlights the impact better reporting and response can have on reducing harms and saving lives. The strategy will be supported by the Patient Safety Incident Reporting Framework, due to be published in early 2020. This framework is being piloted in a number of services, including prison healthcare.
Response received on 7 January 2020.