HSJ Awards 2015: Compassionate patient care

South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust – Compassionate care in a custodial setting

In 2014, South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust – which looks after prison healthcare in Northern Ireland – began engaging prisoners in serious adverse incident reviews.

A service user engagement project was launched to discover what mattered to patients. The views of hard-to-reach prisoners were sought, through face-to-face meetings at visits, in the gym and elsewhere. Interpreters were used where necessary.

The trust has delivered compassionate care in testing circumstances. For example, primary care nurse Karan helped a young inmate who had a grand mal seizure after taking drugs. She administered resuscitation and reassured him until an ambulance arrived. When Karan came back to tidy up, the other prisoners lined up and clapped and cheered her, shaking her hand and thanking her for saving the young man’s life. 

Senior dental surgeon Ruth, an executive committee member of Health Without Barriers, has helped introduce a new oral care pathway for female patients undergoing care for substance misuse or mental health treatment. This is now set to be rolled out to male prisoners. 

In October 2014, healthcare staff received terrorist threats from separated prisoners but the service has continued to put compassion at the core of what it does.

Judges said this “outstanding” scheme “oozed compassion”.