Developing clinical pharmacy services to prisoners in Scotland

Abstract

Focal points □ The work has provided a legally compliant and professional prison pharmacy service to all 15 Scottish Prison Service establishments and to the 30,000 annual admissions □ The service has been adapted to operate practically in a number of different, unique, secure environments providing comprehensive care and patient medication records for all prisoners □ Services meet prisoners' pharmaceutical care needs and provide a modern service covering supplies, dispensing services, clinical pharmacy, medicines management, clinical governance and a widening role in health promotion □ The service is monitored jointly and a number of improvements have led to significant reductions in the numbers of prescriptions issued over the year the service has been fully operational □ SPS has appointed a full‐time pharmacy adviser to monitor the contract and provide public health and pharmacy policy advice

Characterization of pharmacy services in Portuguese prisons: a national survey

“…Nevertheless, there was a clear shortage of skilled human resources in pharmacy departments, as only 6 per cent of PEs had pharmacists. This indicates that the situation in Portugal differs from other countries: in Scotland and Ireland, for example, pharmacists are fully integrated in health prison teams (Irish Prison Service, 2011;McNulty et al, 2001). In Spain, the provision of pharmaceutical care in prisons is under the supervision and control of a pharmacist (Spain' , 2000).…”

“…Similar situations have occurred, in the past, at prison pharmacies in other European countries, namely England (Reed and Lyne, 2007;Department of Health of England (DHE), 2003), Scotland (McNulty et al, 2001) and France (Cabelguenne, 2007). However, these countries have subsequently introduced reference documents such as "Health Care Standards in Scottish Prison Service" (Scotland) (McNulty et al, 2001), "Act of 18 January 1994" (France) (Cabelguenne, 2007), "Pharmacy Services for Prisoners" (England) (DHE, 2003), which have gone some way to improving the prison pharmacy services in these countries.…”