Supporting prisoners with mental health needs in the transition to RESETtle in the community: the RESET study.

Background: Homelessness is linked to poor mental health and an increased likelihood of offending. People often lose accommodation when they enter prison and struggle to find accommodation upon release leading to an increased likelihood of relapse and reoffending. The RESET intervention was developed to support prisoners with mental health needs for 12 weeks after release to coordinate their transition into the community and obtaining secure housing.

Mental health and offending in older people: Future directions for research.

Background: The number of older people and their proportion of the prison population in high-income countries is increasing substantially. This pattern is mirrored by the age profile in forensic hospital services, and both trends seem counter to the age-crime curve concept. How do we understand this and what are the mental health needs of this growing group?

Aim: The aim of this review is to identify existing research robust enough to inform policy and practice in relation to mental health in older offenders and the knowledge gaps that should drive future research.

Growing older in secure mental health care: the user experience.

Background: The proportion of older adults using secure forensic psychiatric services is rising. Research is needed to examine the experience of older service users and evidence how adult services can adapt to meet their needs.

Aim: To explore user experiences of being an older adult in secure forensic services.

A pilot cluster randomised trial to assess the effect of a structured communication approach on quality of life in secure mental health settings: The Comquol Study.

Background: There is a lack of research in forensic settings examining therapeutic relationships. A structured communication approach, placing patients' perspectives at the heart of discussions about their care, was used to improve patients' quality of life in secure settings. The objectives were to: • Establish the feasibility of the trial design • Determine the variability of the outcomes of interest • Estimate the costs of the intervention • If necessary, refine the intervention METHODS: A pilot cluster randomised controlled trial was conducted.

Mental illness and parenthood: being a parent in secure psychiatric care.

Background: Research into parenting and mental illness seldom includes forensic mental health service users, despite its relevance to therapeutic, family work and risk management.

Aims: This study aimed to understand the experiences of parents and the variety of parenting roles maintained during admission to a secure forensic hospital.

Methods: Narrative interviews with 18 parents (eight mothers and 10 fathers) at an English medium security hospital were analysed thematically, using the framework approach.

Study to assess the effect of a structured communication approach on quality of life in secure mental health settings (Comquol): study protocol for a pilot cluster randomized trial.

Background: Forensic mental health services have largely ignored examining patients' views on the nature of the services offered to them. A structured communication approach (DIALOG) has been developed with the aim of placing the patient's perspective on their care at the heart of the discussions between patients and clinicians. The effectiveness of the structured communication approach in community mental health services has been demonstrated, but no trial has taken place in a secure psychiatric setting.

Influencing the care pathway for prisoners with acute mental illness.

Background: Despite improved mental health services in prisons in England and Wales, there are often delays in transferring acutely mentally ill prisoners to hospital, particularly in the London area.

Aim: To establish whether clinical pathway interventions can reduce such transfer delays.

Methods: Two clinical pathway interventions - one based in a medium secure forensic hospital and the other in a remand prison (pre-trial/sentence) - were independently introduced to manage referrals of prisoners with acute mental illness in London, UK.

Variations in prison mental health services in England and Wales.

In responding to high levels of psychiatric morbidity amongst prisoners and recognising earlier poor quality prison mental health care, prison mental health in-reach teams have been established in England and Wales over the last decade. They are mostly provided by the National Health Service (NHS), which provides the majority of UK healthcare services. Over the same period, the prison population has grown to record levels, such that prisons in England and Wales now contain almost 90,000 of the world's overall prison population of over 10 million people (roughly the size of Paris or Istanbul).

Identifying men at ultra high risk of psychosis in a prison population.

Background: The prevalence of psychotic disorders among prisoners is relatively high. We sought to investigate the prevalence of men who have a very high risk of developing psychosis in a prison population.

Methods: The Prodromal Questionnaire - Brief Version (Loewy, Pearson, Vinogradov, Bearden and Cannon, 2011), was used to screen newly-arrived prisoners in a London prison for features associated with an increased risk of psychosis.

Prison health-care wings: psychiatry's forgotten frontier?

Background: There is worldwide evidence of high rates of mental disorder among prisoners, with significant co-morbidity. In England and Wales, mental health services have been introduced from the National Health Service to meet the need, but prison health-care wings have hardly been evaluated.

Aims/hypotheses: To conduct a service evaluation of the health-care wing of a busy London remand (pre-trial) prison and examine the prevalence and range of mental health problems, including previously unrecognised psychosis.

The reliability and validity of the forensic Camberwell Assessment of Need (CANFOR): a needs assessment for forensic mental health service users.

No instrument exists that measures the individual needs of forensic mental health service users (FMHSUs). The aim of this study was therefore to develop a valid and reliable individual needs assessment instrument for FMHSUs that incorporated staff and service user views and measured met and unmet needs. The Camberwell Assessment of Need was used as a template to develop CANFOR.