Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what action they are taking to improve retention rates amongst nurses across the prison estate.

It is expected that all prisons have access to a full range of health professionals as per services within the community. Since 2013, NHS England has been responsible for commissioning all healthcare services for prisoners in England.

Recognising that there are particular challenges around recruiting and retaining healthcare staff across the secure and detained estate, NHS England commissioned a review to look at the workforce, market management and recruitment and retention in adult prisons and immigration removal centres in England.

The review findings were shared with the NHS England Health and Justice Clinical Reference Group in November 2017. The review made recommendations on how the prison healthcare market could be better managed, and what could be done to raise the profile of nursing roles, increase the number of qualified nurses and reduce the number of agency staff. An implementation plan is currently being developed to drive forward these recommendations, overseen by the NHS England Health and Justice Clinical Reference Group, working closely with the Royal College of Nursing Professional Lead for Justice and Forensic Nursing and Learning Disability Nursing.

Work is currently underway to identify and collate best practice for inclusion within the plan, which is likely to advocate a comprehensive range of supportive activities that commissioners and providers can use to improve the recruitment, retention and wellbeing of nursing teams. These include strengthening leadership and governance arrangements; removing non-nursing duties from nurses’ roles; improved administrative support; access to technological solutions; enhancements to working environments and improved terms and conditions.