Helen Thornton-Jones
Modernisation is usually thought of as an NHS phenomenon but already its in? uence has spread. Here we outline the development of modernisation in prisons. From our experience of supporting a local prison in undertaking health needs assessment and developing its health improvement planning we have been able to observe modernisation beginning to work in prison healthcare and taking e¡ect over a relatively short period of time. Although it is too early to provide conclusive evidence of direct bene???½ ts to prisoner-patients we have found some encouraging signs. Here we report on a brief survey of how prison healthcare sta¡ currently view modernisation and its perceived bene???½ ts for patients, and discuss the need to initiate systematicrobust evaluations of some of the small-scale initiatives that modernisation has generated
