Accessing opioid agonist treatment in prison in England and Scotland remains problematic - the views of people with lived experience

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine lived experiences of opioid agonist treatment (OAT) during and immediately following release from detention in prisons in England and Scotland.

Design/methodology/approach: Surveys were completed by serving prisoners in both countries and by those recently released from prison (England only). The survey findings were discussed in focus groups of people with lived experience. The combined findings from the surveys and focus groups were shared with an expert group of prison OAT providers and people with lived experience with the purpose of making recommendations for more accessible and effective OAT in custodial environments and continuity of OAT on release.

Findings: The quality and accessibility of OAT varied considerably between establishments. It was reported to be harder to access OAT in Scottish prisons. It was often hard for people in prison to get the dosage of OAT they felt they needed and it was generally harder to access buprenorphine than methadone in English prisons. Only Scottish people in prison were aware of long-lasting forms of buprenorphine. People in English prisons had mixed experiences of the help available in prison, with no improvement recorded since a 2016 study. People in Scottish prisons were more likely to rate the help available as poor.

Research limitations/implications: The number of people accessed while actually in prison (73) was reduced by the impact of the pandemic, making it more difficult to access people in prison and because some were resistant to participating on the basis that they had already been consulted for a wide variety of research projects focused on the impact of COVID. The Scottish cohort (a total of 19 individuals comprising 14 survey respondents and five focus group members) is clearly too small a number on which to base robust claims about differences in OAT provision between the English and Scottish prison systems..

Practical implications: The study identifies key barriers to accessing OAT in prisons and suggests key components of more user-friendly approaches.

Social implications: This study provides an overview of the recent lived experiences of people accessing OAT in prison and on release and offers valuable recommendations on how to make service provision more effective and consistent.

Originality/value: This study provides an overview of the recent lived experiences of people accessing OAT in prison and on release in England and Scotland and offers valuable recommendations on how to make service provision more effective and consistent.