Capturing perceptions: Prisoners assess their health services ‐ Australia, 2001 and 2004

There is little literature on patient satisfaction related to prisoner health services; the little that does exist refers to specific services, or to sub‐groups of prisoner‐patients. We describe a general assessment of prisoner health services conducted on two separate occasions each with a collective sample of 210 participants, three years apart, using the same instrument. We utilised the World Health Organization Rapid Cluster Sample Survey on both occasions. We conclude that prisoners are interested informants for the health services provided to them. They have valid concerns about the confidentiality of their medical records. Programs and work routines have major impacts on accessibility of prison‐based health services. Given the lack of choice in service‐providers for prisoners, greater flexibility is required by health and custodial agencies to accommodate these two competing areas of activity. We demonstrated that a health service targeting an ‘at risk’ population can respond to inadequacies in service provision. Finally, we confirmed that the World Health Organization Rapid Cluster Sample Survey methodology is an efficient and effective means of assessing health services to discrete populations.