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Prison ICAS

POhWER has been providing an Independent Complaints Advocacy Service (ICAS) to the general population across the eastern region of the country since 2003, and since June 2005 has been contracted by the Department of Health to also begin providing this service to H.M. Prisons in this region.

A helpline with an 0845 local rate number was set up immediately and guidelines were produced on call handling procedures for the new helpline and for referring calls made by prisoners to the existing helplines. A Post Office Box was then established to cater for prisoners who choose to write to us.
An initial mailing to all Prison Governors and Chief Executives of the relevant Primary Care Trusts took place in July 2005 and was followed up with contact to the various Healthcare Managers and appropriate PCT staff during August and September, at which time contact was also made with the Independent Monitoring Boards for each prison.
Meetings are currently taking place with the most forthcoming of these professionals in order to establish best practice in working together to make the ICAS service accessible. Reaction to the service has been mixed, with some contacts very keen to move forward while others have concerns which will need to be addressed. In all cases these colleagues seem to be under huge time pressure so we needed to recognise this barrier and be as flexible as possible in our approach.
There has been some delay in adding the helpline numbers to the prison PIN system, but this should be in place very shortly. Posters to promote the service are ready now and information booklets have just been received. Some concern has been expressed by colleagues about the content of the posters, so we are trying to introduce these at meetings in each prison rather than by mailing them out, so that we can address any concerns which may be raised. We also hope to reach local agreement about where and how the posters will be displayed.
To further address concerns of staff and to help establish positive working relationships, we have put together a simple PowerPoint presentation which we hope to deliver to all involved staff in each prison over time.
We attended the last Regional Health in Prisons Group meeting for the Eastern Region on 17 October 2005, and gave this new presentation to that group, which is composed of both PCT and Prison Healthcare staff.
POhWER staff involved in the project have attended workshops to share experiences and ideas, and continue to attend monthly Department of Health facilitated Peer Support Group meetings to discuss experiences and share knowledge between ICAS providers. We had met with David Gwilliam, Head of Healthcare at HMP Highpoint and HMP Edmunds Hill, as part of our contact process and following a very positive meeting David was invited to speak at the last of those meetings and his insight and experience was extremely informative and useful to the group.
POhWER are part of the executive level Steering Group too , hosted by the Department of Health, which meets regularly to review progress and which is the decision making body for the project.
A two day ‘Prisoncraft’ course has been compiled and is to be trialed during November. The course will then be made available to all staff involved in the project. Interest in attending has also been expressed by colleagues from other organisations.
The challenge now is to continue to work carefully to ensure that the service is received as positively as possible by all concerned while recognising and responding to the very urgent need from prisoners’ perspectives to get the service up and running as soon as possible.
Prison ICAS Service Updated May 07 (28 kb)

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