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P295 Prison in-reach hepatology clinics: improving access for an inclusion health group

gutjnl · 2026-06-23 · canonical JSON source

9 visible annotations · policy: published · automated confidence ≥ 75.00%

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Introduction Studies from the United States have shown that prisoners have disproportionately high rates of liver disease, particularly viral hepatitis and alcohol-related liver disease. Within the NHS, prisoners are an ‘inclusion health group’ who face challenges to accessing secondary care, therefore we evaluated the impact of establishing a novel first-in-class hepatology in-reach clinic within HMP Northumberland on service access and attendance compared to the standard hospital clinic model.Methods We conducted a retrospective descriptive analysis of hepatology appointments for prisoners. Four prison clinics with 83 prisoner appointments at HMP Northumberland from December 2024 to November 2025 were compared with 20 prisoner appointments at hospital clinics in North Tyneside General Hospital (NTGH) and Wansbeck General Hospital (WGH) from December 2023 to April 2025. The primary outcomes were annualised appointment rates, non-attendance (DNA) rates stratified by appointment type (new versus follow-up), and temporal trends across successive prison clinic sessions.Results Our prison in-reach clinics increased access to hepatology care ( table 1). Annualised appointments increased six-fold from 14/year during the hospital clinic model to 90/year with the prison in-reach clinics. Overall, in the prison clinic DNA rates were lower (38.6%) compared to hospital clinics (50%). This improved attendance was observed for both new appointments (42.0% versus 50.0%) and follow-up appointments (21.4% versus 50.0%). Progressive improvement was observed across four successive prison clinic sessions, with overall DNA decreasing from 61% to 16% as intra-prison referral and escort protocols became established.Conclusions Prison hepatology clinics increased prisoner access to care six-fold whilst improving attendance for both new and follow-up appointments. The progressive improvement in DNA rates demonstrates that operational intra-prison challenges are being overcome with established protocols. Ongoing analysis is evaluating the relative economic costs of the clinic and the impact upon clinical outcomes, specifically disease severity using Fibroscan results.This model shows potential for improving liver disease outcomes in this inclusion health group.Abstract P295 Table 1Prison clinics versus hospital clinicsClinic settingnDNANewF/UAppts/yearPrison8338.6%42.0%21.4%90Hospital2050.0%50.0%50.0%14