Two NECS Health and Justice Leads have recently become published co-authors in the prestigious medical journal, The Lancet.
Nicola Seanor and Marie Cunningham were part of the academic project team which produced the article about the quality of prison primary care in the North of England – ‘The quality of prison primary care: cross-sectional cluster-level analyses of prison healthcare data in the North of England’.
It is well documented that prisoners generally receive lower standards of primary care compared to what is delivered in the community. Concerted efforts are needed to achieve the equivalent quality of healthcare and outcomes between incarcerated and community populations. This is the primary role of the NECS Health and Justice team which collaborates with strategic partners to improve health outcomes for the populations within the justice system.
Nicola and Marie worked for over three years alongside academic colleagues from Leeds, York, Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan and Keele universities. This also included colleagues from Spectrum Community Health CIC (providers of prison healthcare services in the UK) to investigate the quality of primary care delivered to prisoners in the North of England. The study found substantial scope for improvement and marked variations in quality.
The Lancet is a weekly independent, international general medical journal which publishes original research articles, review articles, editorials, book reviews and correspondence, as well as news features and case reports. Nicola and Marie were thrilled when the submitted article was published in The Lancet.
Health and Justice Lead Nicola said: “I am very excited to see the final product in print! Marie played an amazing role as a Clinical Lead to ensure that the academic project team was able to access and understand the health and justice settings and the clinical systems which kept the project on track.
“Future ideas for health and justice academic studies of this nature are under consideration by the research partners, which is exciting considering this is an area of healthcare which is traditionally under researched. We are looking forward to continue to work with academic organisations in the future.”
You can read the full article in The Lancet titled ‘The quality of prison primary care: cross-sectional cluster-level analyses of prison healthcare data in the North of England’.
Learn more about the NECS Health and Justice service at https://bit.ly/3Oms6Vi