Collaborative Leadership for Prison Health: the Five Nations Health and Justice Collaboration
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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.