6-07-2009 Home Office, UK - Drug Misusing Offenders: Ensuring the continuity-of-care between prison and community

“Effective management of the continuity-of-care journey depends on the right people sharing the right information at the right time”. 

The recently published Home Office guide on continuity of care provides specific guidance on managing the continuity-of-care journey that drug misusing offenders follow on entering prison from the community, whilst in prison, and exiting prison. It is the product of an extensive consultation with front-line workers and managers from Counselling, Assessment Referral, Advice and Throughcare (CARATs) and prison healthcare and Criminal Justice Intervention Teams (CJITs) in the UK, conducted by the Home Office, Ministry of Justice and National Treatment Agency between January – March 2009.  

During this consultation, a continuity-of-care “journey map” was devised charting the journey that a drug-misusing offender undergoes when entering prison from the community, whilst in prison, and exiting prison, and the “journey map” helped to clarify specific roles and responsibilities between the agencies involved in managing an offender’s continuity-of-care journey. 

The document can be downloaded at  http://drugs.homeoffice.gov.uk/publication-search/dip/continuity-of-care/guidance?view=Binary