Postgraduate research opportunities Co-producing a Common Clinical Conditions service in the Scottish Prison Service

Within prison environments, access to healthcare and specific healthcare professionals, such as pharmacists, is lacking. Within the Scottish Prison Service, work is underway to explore how people within the Scottish Prison Service can co-design a service that enables them to work with healthcare professionals to manage their common clinical conditions. The co-designed service should help service-users to pursue health-improving behaviours and safeguard their health, by actively engaging in health seeking behaviours. The work will be informed by the MRC’s guidance on developing, implementing, and evaluating complex interventions which will consider the processes involved, the people and the outcomes. The successful PhD applicant will be expected to identify relevant underpinning programme theory to guide the PhD process.

Part 1: Exploration of existing health provision within the prison environment, including access to services, healthcare professionals and utilisation of technology such as telehealth facilities [e.g. using on-site observations]

Part 2: Understanding healthcare needs of people within prison services to support service conceptualisation and identification of intended clinical, humanistic, and economic outcomes (e.g. improved management of common conditions, improved health seeking behaviour) [e.g. using interviews / focus group]

Part 3: Co-design common clinical conditions service with multiple stakeholders [e.g. multiple workshops, consensus methods]

Part 4: Early test of common clinical conditions service [e.g. prototype / feasibility testing]