Social care in prison: A needs assessment
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Social care in prison: A needs assessment
IRAS ID
162892
Contact name
J Shaw
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
The University of Manchester
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
In April 2015 a new law called The Care Act (2014) will reform how social care systems are delivered in England. The new laws will make social care better by making it more focused on people’s individual needs, fairer across the country and more supportive for carers. This will mean more people should get access to the right services and support.
These changes also relate to people in prison and Local Authorities will be responsible for arranging appropriate procedures are in place to identify and assess prisoners with a social care need. The level of need will then be evaluated against the national eligibility criteria if judge to be eligible, Local Authorities would then have a duty to commission a service for that need. At present despite an abundantly obvious level of need social care and social work are too often absent from the UK prisons. The project aims to improve current practices in the identification of social care problems for adults in prison custody. The overall programme will examine the social care needs and current social care provision for adult prisoners in five prisons in the North West of England. It will then identify any gaps in social care service provision area and develop a service planning brief to ensure social care services meet national standards and local ambitions to ensure that services meet the needs of the local prison population.
REC name
North West - Preston Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/NW/1425
Date of REC Opinion
10 Dec 2014
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion