Count Me In Census In Prisons
The Count Me in Census is one of
the building blocks of the government's plan to tackle inequalities in
access and outcomes for mental health service users from Black and
minority ethnic communities. At the heart of the Census is accurate
information about patient ethnicity, language and religion, and some of
the providers who participated in the 2005 and 2006 Censuses are
already using this information to monitor and plan services.
The aims of the Census are:
- To obtain robust baseline figures of all in-patients (informal and detained patients) using mental health and learning disability in-patient services on a specified date in 2006-07 with full details of ethnicity
- To encourage all mental health and learning disability providers to have accurate and comprehensive sustainable ethnic monitoring and ethnic record keeping procedures in place that will provide the basis for high quality data on the ethnicity of patients in all future data gathering exercises
- To provide information which will help providers take practical steps to achieve the government's five year plan to tackle discrimination in mental health services (Delivering Race Equality), and within services as a whole
The South East Pilot
The South-East Health and Social
Care in Criminal Justice (HSCCJ) Team took on the task of piloting the
Count Me in Census in twenty-seven establishments across the South
East. Conducted over a week in April 2008 the Census used a modified
dataset to meet different circumstances in prisons, recording offenders
on Mental Health prison in reach team's case loads, those in Mental
Health beds in prisons and those awaiting transfer to Mental Health
Units on that week. On census day all those offenders no longer
fulfilling the three categories were removed and those left were
counted.
With a 100% return rate, it is fair to say that this was a successful pilot. Its evaluation and analysis, conducted by Kate Saffin from the Public Health Resource Unit (PHRU) and North East Public Health Observatory (NEPHO) via Professor John Wilkinson and Marianne Law, have provided us with important feedback and recommendations for 2009's national roll-out. Please feel free to download and distribute the findings from last year's pilot.
National Roll-Out
Following the successful pilot
the decision has been made to roll-out the census nationally in all
custodial establishments in England and Wales in 2009. The census will
be run by the Department of Health's South East Health and Social Care
in Criminal Justice Team with support from other regional teams as well
as colleagues from the Healthcare Commission. Beverley Thompson at the
National Offender Management Service (NOMS) will be chairing the
steering group for this national project. For More information on the
national rollout please see the below presentation.
We would appreciate your support
with the project. If you have any questions on last year's pilot or the
National Rollout please contact one of our project team.
Health & Social Care in Criminal Justice Programme (HSCCJP)
Department of Health - South East
1st Floor Bridge House
1 Walnut Tree Close
Guildford
GU1 4GA Tel:
01483 882340
Project Team
MANAWAR JAN-KHAN email. Manawar.Jan-Khan@dhsocialcareprogrammes.org.uk
National Project Lead
mob. 07919 110308
KULTAR NAYYAR email. Kultar.Nayyar@dhsocialcareprogrammes.org.uk National Project Manager
mob. 07917 599511
CHRIS JACK email. Chris.Jack@dhsocialcareprogrammes.org.uk
National Project Manager
mob. 07917 599438