Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the report entitled Injustice? Towards a better understanding of health care access challenges for prisoners, published by Nuffield Trust on 21 October 2021, what steps he is taking to increase access to outpatient services via remote consultations in prisons in England; and what assessment he has made of the barriers to increased use of remote consultations in prisons in England.

To increase access to outpatient services, all secure and detained sites in England have now received the equipment to facilitate Telemedicine appointments within their establishment. Regions are working to establish connections with their tertiary and secondary health care partners to reduce the need to move a patient to sites external to the prison for a healthcare appointment.

No formal assessment has been made of the barriers to increased use of remote consultations in prisons in England. However, South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw region is running a pilot connecting five prisons to one hospital trust for telemedicine appointments and has successfully implemented a clinical assessment and treatment service clinic using the telemedicine solution. Learning from this pilot is being rolled out across the English regions and other regions are now setting up similar services.

NHS England and NHS Improvement continues to work with other providers of services such as mental health organisations, probation services, voluntary community and social enterprise organisations, and liaison and diversion services to promote the use of telemedicine across the estate.