Understanding the organisational influences on the quality of and access to primary care in English prisons: a qualitative interview study.

BACKGROUND: Primary care for routine healthcare conditions is delivered to thousands of people in the English prison estate every day but the prison environment presents unique challenges to the provision of high-quality health care. Little research has focused on the organisational factors that affect quality of and access to prison health care. AIM: To understand key influences on the quality of primary care in prisons. DESIGN AND SETTING: This was a qualitative interview study across the North of England from 2019 to 2021. METHOD: Interviews were undertaken with 43 participants: 21 prison leavers and 22 prison healthcare professionals. Reflexive thematic analysis was undertaken. RESULTS: The overarching organisational issue influencing quality and access was that of chronic understaffing coupled with a workforce in flux and dependence on locum staff. This applied across different prisons, roles, and grades of staff, and was vocally discussed by both patient and staff participants. Intricately related to understaffing (and fuelled by it) was the propensity for a reactive and sometimes crisis-led service to develop that was characterised by continual firefighting. A persistent problem exacerbated by the above issues was unreliable communication about healthcare matters within some prisons, creating frustration. Positive commentary focused on the characteristics and actions of individual healthcare professionals. CONCLUSION: This study highlights understaffing and its consequences as the most significant threat to the quality of and access to prison primary care. Strategies to address health care affecting prison populations urgently need to consider staffing. This issue should receive high-profile and mainstream attention to address health inequalities.

The quality of prison primary care: cross-sectional cluster-level analyses of prison healthcare data in the North of England.

Background: Prisoners have significant health needs, are relatively high users of healthcare, and often die prematurely. Strong primary care systems are associated with better population health outcomes. We investigated the quality of primary care delivered to prisoners. Methods: We assessed achievement against 30 quality indicators spanning different domains of care in 13 prisons in the North of England. We conducted repeated cross-sectional analyses of routinely recorded data from electronic health records over 2017-20. Multi-level mixed effects logistic regression models explored associations between indicator achievement and prison and prisoner characteristics. Findings: Achievement varied markedly between indicators, prisons and over time. Achieved processes of care ranged from 1% for annual epilepsy reviews to 94% for blood pressure checks in diabetes. Intermediate outcomes of care ranged from only 0.2% of people with epilepsy being seizure-free in the preceding year to 34% with diabetes having sufficient blood pressure control. Achievement improved over three years for 11 indicators and worsened for six, including declining antipsychotic monitoring and rising opioid prescribing. Achievement varied between prisons, e.g., 1.93-fold for gabapentinoid prescribing without coded neuropathic pain (odds ratio [OR] range 0.67-1.29) and 169-fold for dried blood spot testing (OR range 0.05-8.45). Shorter lengths of stay were frequently associated with lower achievement. Ethnicity was associated with some indicators achievement, although the associations differed (both positive and negative) with indicators. Interpretation: We found substantial scope for improvement and marked variations in quality, which were largely unaltered after adjustment for prison and prisoner characteristics. Funding: National Institute for Health and Care Research Health and Social Care and Delivery Research Programme: 17/05/26.

Quality indicators and performance measures for prison healthcare: a scoping review.

BACKGROUND: Internationally, people in prison should receive a standard of healthcare provision equivalent to people living in the community. Yet efforts to assess the quality of healthcare through the use of quality indicators or performance measures have been much more widely reported in the community than in the prison setting. This review aims to provide an overview of research undertaken to develop quality indicators suitable for prison healthcare. METHODS: An international scoping review of articles published in English was conducted between 2004 and 2021. Searches of six electronic databases (MEDLINE, CINAHL, Scopus, Embase, PsycInfo and Criminal Justice Abstracts) were supplemented with journal searches, author searches and forwards and backwards citation tracking. RESULTS: Twelve articles were included in the review, all of which were from the United States. Quality indicator selection processes varied in rigour, and there was no evidence of patient involvement in consultation activities. Selected indicators predominantly measured healthcare processes rather than health outcomes or healthcare structure. Difficulties identified in developing performance measures for the prison setting included resource constraints, data system functionality, and the comparability of the prison population to the non-incarcerated population. CONCLUSIONS: Selecting performance measures for healthcare that are evidence-based, relevant to the population and feasible requires rigorous and transparent processes. Balanced sets of indicators for prison healthcare need to reflect prison population trends, be operable within data systems and be aligned with equivalence principles. More effort needs to be made to meaningfully engage people with lived experience in stakeholder consultations on prison healthcare quality. Monitoring healthcare structure, processes and outcomes in prison settings will provide evidence to improve care quality with the aim of reducing health inequalities experienced by people living in prison.

Unrecognised bipolar disorder among UK primary care patients prescribed antidepressants: an observational study.

BACKGROUND: Bipolar disorder is not uncommon, is associated with high disability and risk of suicide, often presents with depression, and can go unrecognised. AIM: To determine the prevalence of unrecognised bipolar disorder among those prescribed antidepressants for depressive or anxiety disorder in UK primary care; whether those with unrecognised bipolar disorder have more severe depression than those who do not; and the accuracy of a screening questionnaire for bipolar disorder, the Mood Disorder Questionnaire (MDQ), in this setting. DESIGN AND SETTING: Observational primary care study of patients on the lists of 21 general practices in West Yorkshire aged 16-40 years and prescribed antidepressant medication. METHOD: Participants were recruited using primary care databases, interviewed using a diagnostic interview, and completed the screening questionnaire and rating scales of symptoms and quality of life. RESULTS: The prevalence of unrecognised bipolar disorder was 7.3%. Adjusting for differences between the sample and a national database gives a prevalence of 10.0%. Those with unrecognised bipolar disorder were younger and had greater lifetime depression. The predictive value of the MDQ was poor. CONCLUSION: Among people aged 16-40 years prescribed antidepressants in primary care for depression or anxiety, there is a substantial proportion with unrecognised bipolar disorder. When seeing patients with depression or anxiety disorder, particularly when they are young or not doing well, clinicians should review the life history for evidence of unrecognised bipolar disorder. Some clinicians might find the MDQ to be a useful supplement to non-standardised questioning.

The effects of financial incentives for case finding for depression in patients with diabetes and coronary heart disease: interrupted time series analysis.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effects of Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) incentivised case finding for depression on diagnosis and treatment in targeted and non-targeted long-term conditions. DESIGN: Interrupted time series analysis. SETTING: General practices in Leeds, UK. PARTICIPANTS: 65 (58%) of 112 general practices shared data on 37,229 patients with diabetes and coronary heart disease targeted by case finding incentives, and 101,008 patients with four other long-term conditions not targeted (hypertension, epilepsy, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma). INTERVENTION: Incentivised case finding for depression using two standard screening questions. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Clinical codes indicating new depression-related diagnoses and new prescriptions of antidepressants. We extracted routinely recorded data from February 2002 through April 2012. The number of new diagnoses and prescriptions for those on registers was modelled with a binomial regression, which provided the strength of associations between time periods and their rates. RESULTS: New diagnoses of depression increased from 21 to 94/100,000 per month in targeted patients between the periods 2002-2004 and 2007-2011 (OR 2.09; 1.92 to 2.27). The rate increased from 27 to 77/100,000 per month in non-targeted patients (OR 1.53; 1.46 to 1.62). The slopes in prescribing for both groups flattened to zero immediately after QOF was introduced but before incentivised case finding (p<0.01 for both). Antidepressant prescribing in targeted patients returned to the pre-QOF secular upward trend (Wald test for equivalence of slope, z=0.73, p=0.47); the slope was less steep for non-targeted patients (z=-4.14, p<0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Incentivised case finding increased new depression-related diagnoses. The establishment of QOF disrupted rising trends in new prescriptions of antidepressants, which resumed following the introduction of incentivised case finding. Prescribing trends are of concern given that they may include people with mild-to-moderate depression unlikely to respond to such treatment.

Incentivised case finding for depression in patients with chronic heart disease and diabetes in primary care: an ethnographic study.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the process of case finding for depression in people with diabetes and coronary heart disease within the context of a pay-for-performance scheme. DESIGN: Ethnographic study drawing on observations of practice routines and consultations, debriefing interviews with staff and patients and review of patient records. SETTING: General practices in Leeds, UK. PARTICIPANTS: 12 purposively sampled practices with a total of 119 staff; 63 consultation observations and 57 patient interviews. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Audio recorded consultations and interviews with patients and healthcare professionals along with observation field notes were thematically analysed. We assessed outcomes of case finding from patient records. RESULTS: Case finding exacerbated the discordance between patient and professional agendas, the latter already dominated by the tightly structured and time-limited nature of chronic illness reviews. Professional beliefs and abilities affected how case finding was undertaken; there was uncertainty about how to ask the questions, particularly among nursing staff. Professionals were often wary of opening an emotional 'can of worms'. Subsequently, patient responses potentially suggesting emotional problems could be prematurely shut down by professionals. Patients did not understand why they were asked questions about depression. This sometimes led to defensive or even defiant answers to case finding. Follow-up of patients highlighted inconsistent systems and lines of communication for dealing with positive results on case finding. CONCLUSIONS: Case finding does not fit naturally within consultations; both professional and patient reactions somewhat subverted the process recommended by national guidance. Quality improvement strategies will need to take account of our results in two ways. First, despite their apparent simplicity, the case finding questions are not consultation-friendly and acceptable alternative ways to raise the issue of depression need to be supported. Second, case finding needs to operate within structured pathways which can be accommodated within available systems and resources.

How patients understand depression associated with chronic physical disease--a systematic review.

BACKGROUND: Clinicians are encouraged to screen people with chronic physical illness for depression. Screening alone may not improve outcomes, especially if the process is incompatible with patient beliefs. The aim of this research is to understand people's beliefs about depression, particularly in the presence of chronic physical disease. METHODS: A mixed method systematic review involving a thematic analysis of qualitative studies and quantitative studies of beliefs held by people with current depressive symptoms. MEDLINE, EMBASE, PSYCHINFO, CINAHL, BIOSIS, Web of Science, The Cochrane Library, UKCRN portfolio, National Research Register Archive, Clinicaltrials.gov and OpenSIGLE were searched from database inception to 31st December 2010. A narrative synthesis of qualitative and quantitative data, based initially upon illness representations and extended to include other themes not compatible with that framework. RESULTS: A range of clinically relevant beliefs was identified from 65 studies including the difficulty in labeling depression, complex causal factors instead of the biological model, the roles of different treatments and negative views about the consequences of depression. We found other important themes less related to ideas about illness: the existence of a self-sustaining 'depression spiral'; depression as an existential state; the ambiguous status of suicidal thinking; and the role of stigma and blame in depression. CONCLUSIONS: Approaches to detection of depression in physical illness need to be receptive to the range of beliefs held by patients. Patient beliefs have implications for engagement with depression screening.