Dr Alex calls prison healthcare the ‘nirvana’ for a GP who wants to put the patient and their needs first. He is blending his passion for patient care providing comprehensive care to a diverse patient population at HMP Doncaster.
Prior to working as a GP at HMP Doncaster, I was what you would call a “jobbing GP” in the community. I think we can all agree that our working lives changed considerably when the Covid pandemic hit, highlighting to me that I was underutilising large areas of clinical skills and knowledge. I wanted a fresh take on how best to use my knowledge and my passion for patient care. I stumbled across a job advert for a GP within health in justice at Practice Plus Group and the rest, as they say, is history.
I feel valued as a member of an extremely experienced multidisciplinary team. Our patients have access to everything on the high street from seeing a dentist to a podiatrist and everything in between. We have integrated mental health and substance misuse teams and we work collaboratively together throughout the whole patient journey until they are released. Same day care is provided by our experienced nurses and HCAs leaving me to see triaged patients with the most complex problems. The patients are brought in groups to healthcare throughout my session, allowing me to be very flexible with my time given per case. If a complex patient needs more time, they get it. As you can imagine, this is the nirvana for a GP wanting to put the patient and their needs first. We also hold a weekly complex case meeting with everyone involved in a patients care coming together to discuss their progress.
Practice Plus Group embrace continued development of healthcare services in the 60 plus prisons and 3 immigration centres for which they are responsible such as video consultations with secondary care and bespoke pathways to allow more efficient treatment.
HMP Doncaster is a busy remand prison and with this comes the challenges of substance misuse and often drug seeking behaviours. We tackle this in our safer prescribing MDT, where we can discuss the risks and benefits of medications following patient consultations.
There is a huge age range of patients at HMP Doncaster from young offenders, to the elderly residing in our social care unit. Often due to their chaotic lifestyles prior to prison, many of our patients have had little or no access to healthcare. This allows a perfect opportunity to screen for chronic disease, including blood born viruses, thus improving our patient outcomes. It has long been documented that through engaging more with health and social care, prisoners greatly reduce their chances of reoffending.
From a personal point of view, becoming a GP in prison medicine with Practice Plus Group has allowed me to achieve that perfect work-life integration. I now bring the same life loving person from outside of work through the prison gatehouse!
