Senior Data Analyst, Communities Team
2024 marks 5 years since the beginning of the Pathfinder to Health Housing and Benefits (PHHaB) and this year’s article gives a chance for us to not only look back upon the previous 12 months but across what has been achieved since 2019.
The Pathfinder (PHHaB) was a subgroup of the Community Justice Glasgow – Throughcare in Partnership Strategy Group, with a focus on utilising data sharing to produce a better process for throughcare support as an iteration to the Scottish Prison Services, ‘Sustainable Housing on Release for Everyone’ (SHORE) standards. These standards sought to support an individual’s reintegration into the community through ensuring the individual’s housing needs are met when released from prison, which came with a data sharing agreement allowing for identification of individuals while in prison and adapting from reactive to proactive delivery, dealing with housing issues while the person is in, prison instead of problems coming to a head when they are released.
In 2019 Community Justice Glasgow planned to launch the PHHaB project in early 2020, however as previously highlighted http://cjg-annualreport.co.uk/sharing-data-to-meet-a-common-goal/ none of us could have been prepared for what lay ahead in 2020.
As a part of the ‘Coronavirus (Scotland) Act 2020’ Schedule 4, Part 8 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2020/7/schedule/4/part/8 – allowed for the Early Release (ER) of prisoners who came under a particular set of circumstances to allow for the Prisons across Scotland to better prepare for social distancing amongst the prison population such as single cell occupancy. This gave the PHHaB subgroup the opportunity to use Early Release 2020 as a template for PHHaB. An example of best-case working out of a worst-case scenario. Data sharing and partnership working were key elements of the success of the Early Release programme while national lockdowns were in effect, and the basis of PHHaB in Glasgow has always been routed in data sharing as the source for partnership working.
A major issue across Glasgow, as opposed to many other local authorities in Scotland, is the social housing sector is dealt with by a large number of separate organisations across the City.
This years’ Annual Reporter update is that the most significant step forward in PHHaB is in our housing partners, which now reach across 39 organisations, covering 88% of housing stock in the social housing sector in the City. This allows for data sharing, where notification of a tenant placed in prison can be highlighted to the Registered Social Landlord (RSL) and a plan put in place for the individual. Sharing data is all about enabling a line of communication which wasn’t available previously, a Housing Provider can be informed when an individual is in Prison and make allowances for this, if appropriate, but are able to make an informed decision to the benefit of the individual and the organisation. Prisoners who are serving a short-term prison sentence, may be in prison for as short a term as 4 to 12 weeks, making partnering with PHHaB a more cost effective proposal than abandonment procedures and preparing the property for re-letting.
No one involved in PHHaB would have expected that encouraging so many small organisation would take so much time and resources to achieve, it has been a long road however with every organisation agreeing to the PHHaB data sharing agreements, our reach expands, increasing our chances of success across the City and our Housing partners have been pivotal to our success.
In 2024, I was invited to attend the launch of SHORE in Inverclyde, to give a perspective from a Local Authority who have been through building this process from the ground up. It gave an opportunity to look back and the achievements of the Community Justice Glasgow – Throughcare in Partnership group and the PHHaB partnership across a half a decade.
In the health area, a Health Needs Assessment (HNA) has been in the making since 2019, however, like other projects was impacted by the Covid 19 Pandemic. Project aims were set out in 2022 to systematically describe and measure the perceptions of health status, health service usage and the health needs of Services Users of Community Justice Services across (and where sample size permits, within) 6 Local Authorities and, Untried in Custody (remand) within HMP Barlinnie, Low Moss and Greenock. These were revised in 2023 to move away from systematic to a focused approach to priority health areas for these populations and to:
- Focus quantitative and qualitative research arms on areas Community Justice and Prison services can affect change in.
- Ensure clear links, where possible, to national strategy for community justice aims and priority actions.
The image above shows the agreed structure for that work, as at time of publication the Literature Review is complete and quantitative data linkage is underway with Public Health Scotland. The question set for the Qualitative Research is in development. This work will help to provide the data required to develop the first ‘H’ work around PHHaB in using that data to build pathways to better outcomes for individuals.
Combined with new national guidance published by the NHS National Prison Care Network on guidance on the Supply of Medications for Prisoners on Liberation from Leaving Prison – people leaving are to now issued with 28-day supply of medications upon liberation either issued as in person supplies, or where not appropriate, as a paper prescription for presentation at a chemist, to avoid interruptions to care and treatment.
Looking forward to the next 12 months, we will expect to see the conclusion of the Scottish Governments commissioned Voluntary Throughcare and Mentoring Services and look forward to working closely with the partners who will deliver that service. Karen McDonald (Team Leader of the Prison Homelessness & SOLO Team) is progressing the ultimate goal of achieving 100% coverage with our housing partners.
Over the past 5 years the PHHaB has made tremendous achievements in how we share and use data for better outcomes for individuals, and we are hopefully in the next 5 years we can continue to do more.