The purpose of the visit was to speak to patients about their experience of being on the ward. To find out if they feel they are given the information they need, are listened to and involved in on-going decisions about their care and treatment.
We were approached by NHS England’s Health and Justice Team to go into HMP Stoke Heath prison in Shropshire to talk to the prisoners about their experience of health care within the prison setting.
Healthwatch Shropshire was involved in Phase 1 of this review with a seat on the MLU Review Board. We took along over 300 pieces of feedback that we have received from services users.
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We received feedback that a patient was unable to contact their GP through the out of hours telephone number and there was some confusion over who was covering a regular closed afternoon, the practice or ShropDoc.
Prisoners at HMP Stoke Heath raised concerns about pain medication. They told us that people had their medication stopped and that there was no support for coming off these medications, even when people may have been on them for many years.