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RELEASE-1
RELEASE started with a study examining mental health and substance use-related health service contacts among people released from prison, and comparing this to people with the same characteristics but who had not been in prison. This study is now called RELEASE-1. Read the results here
What did we find?
We showed that people released from prison have higher rates of mental health and substance use-related contact with a range of services, including: community prescriptions, outpatient, drug and alcohol, general and psychiatric inpatient, NHS24, out-of-hours general practice, ambulance, and accident and emergency services.
Differences between people who had been in prison and similar people who hadn’t been in prison got larger when we looked at more urgent care, especially for mental health. For example though people who had been in prison use 2x more community prescriptions for mental health medication, they went to the emergency department 5x more.
Differences between people who had been in prison and similar people who hadn’t been in prison tended to be larger when looking and substance use, but were still large for mental health.
Analysis of the health, prison and demographic factors associated with different pattern are coming soon
What does this mean?
People released from prison are not getting early and preventative care that meets their mental health and substance use needs, contributing to later presentations to emergency services.
We need to make sure that people released can easily access mental health and substance use services, on release and going forward, and that these services are flexible and responsive to the experiences of people who have been in prison.