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The Centre for Law Enforcement and Public Health hosts the Law Enforcement and Public Health Conference, biennially and this year it was in Edinburgh Scotland in October.
The conference aims to:
- Enhance local, national and international political and institutional leadership
- Understand, develop and sustain partnerships
- Translate research to policy to practice
- Promote the critical role of education and training
- Develop a multidisciplinary research agenda and methodology
- Build and promote ongoing interactions between interested people
The key theme for this year was collaborative leadership.
I had the pleasure of bringing together a major session on day 3 of the conference showcasing the work of the Five Nations Health and Justice Collaboration, a group formed of representatives from both the health and justice sectors of England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, brought together by Public Health England. The work of the group, which meets three times a year with regular monthly operational meetings, demomstrates the impact of collaborative leadership across nations and jurisdictions.
The session was chaired by Eamonn O'Moore, national lead for Health and Justice at PHE and the Director of the UK Collaborating Centre for the WHO HIPP. The session had presentations from Kate Davies and Chris Kelly, NHS England on delivering the NHSE/I Long-Term Plan in the health and justice landscape in collaboration; Stephanie Perrett, Public Health Wales on the challenges in the Welsh health and justice sectors and how collaboration supports action; Orlando Heijmer-Mason, Scottish Government on health and Justice collaboration in Scotland; Ruth Gray, South Eastern Health & Social Care Trust, Northern Ireland on using quality improvement to enhance information flows and pathways for people in custody; and Enda Kelly and Sarah Hume, Irish Prison Service, Republic of Ireland on collaboration to develop a self-harm a assessment tool in prisons.
I was immensely proud of the work that we were able to bring attention to at this international conference, which was the only example of a multi-national apprioach to prison health and health and justice in the conference.
The Five Nations Health and Justice Collaboration used the opportunity of being in Edinburgh to meet formally in an event hosted and chaired by Scottish Government to discuss the challenges of preventing, diagnosisng and treating non-communicable diseases in prisons across the UK and Republic of Ireland.
You can find more information about the Five Nations Health and Justice Collaboration and its jointly developed products at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/public-health-in-prisons#five-nations-health-and-justice-collaboration- Joint publications include those on new psychoactive substances in prisons, prison public health surveillance systems (in press with Journal of Public Health) and future work on smokefree prisons highlighting learning from Europe's largest smokefree prison estate.
For more information, please email sunita.sturup-toft@phe.gov.uk
You can also read reflections from the LEPH 2019 conference by Dr Mattea Clarke, including information about PHE's new publication on a whole-system multi-agency approach to serious violence prevention
Selected conference presentations are also available below: - Collaborative delivery of the NHS Long Term Plan in the health and justice estate - Kate Davies CBE
- Prison Health in Wales: Experiences from a devolved nation - Dr Stephanie E Perrett
- Quality Improvement in the Northern Ireland Prisons - Ruth Gray
- The development and implementation of a national reporting system for self-harm in Irish prisons - SADA project - Sarah Hume & Enda Kelly