Offender Health

Lead person:	Lead PHO: NEPHO
Assistant director (Programmes)
Tel: 0191 334 0402

Offenders and ex-offenders generally experience greater health inequalities and social exclusion. As the number of people who come into contact with the Criminal Justice Sector increase, there will be an increasing number of ex-offenders in communities.

Organisations such as the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) aim to help offenders deal with health issues in the following ways:

• ensure offenders have access to appropriate health services in custody and the community
• ensure suspects and persons detained by the police under mental health provisions are able to access appropriate health & social care professionals at the appropriate time and in the appropriate place
• divert offenders with serious mental healthcare needs to appropriate health services
• improve health service links to other services working with offenders.

Improving the range and standard of health and social care services for offenders and others in contact with the Criminal Justice System (CJS), both within prisons and in the community contributes to a reduction in re-offending, by addressing those health needs which may be linked to offending behaviour, such as misuse of drugs and alcohol, or poor mental health.

For more information about this topic, please look at the topic on the NEPHO web site.

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