Minister praises national IT programme

Care services minister Paul Burstow has hailed the success of The Prison Health IT Programme in England, which is due to be completed in the next few weeks.

The minister told the Revolving Doors conference on offender needs this week that the completion of the programme was a “major landmark” for the health and criminal justice systems.

The Prison Health IT Programme was set up to deliver a shared record with HM Prison Service, and TPP’s SystmOne Prison software was selected as the sole supplier in June 2009.

Burstow said the completion of the project would mean that every prison in England would be linked up a single national clinical IT system and that medical records would follow offenders as they moved between prisons, allowing timely access to high quality clinical information.

He added: “It provides a kind of foundation for the kind of connected system we need to take offender health forward in a digital age. It’s a symbol, really, of the advances we’ve seen in recent years.

"To put offender health on the agenda and stop prison services being the ‘poor relation. We should be heartened by the progress.”

The DH said 138 prisons and more than 5,000 prison healthcare staff were using SystmOne Prison.

Dan Midgley, a customer relationship manager at TPP, who has been involved with the programme from the start, said TPP was delighted with progress.

He added: “It has been a real collaborative effort. The programme’s success is really down to the strong relationships developed between the multiple teams involved, as well as the dedication and commitment shown by all prison healthcare staff.

"We’re seeing a positive transformation in prison healthcare through SystmOne and we hope similar achievements can continue to be replicated in other areas of the NHS.”