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Supporting Documents
The reconfiguration Project has revised its National Allocation Protocol and New Offender Flows.
Cohorting – COVID Unit Management in Digital Prison Services and NOMIS
There are 4 new alerts in Digital Prison Services and NOMIS to help you manage COVID Cohorts.
These alerts must be added to prisoners to identify who is in each of the cohorts.
The alerts can be created under the alert type of ‘COVID unit management’ and are called:
● Reverse Cohorting Unit
● Protective Isolation Unit
● Shielding Unit
● Refusing to shield
If a prisoner has been identified as a shielder but is refusing to shield, the ‘refusing to shield’ alert should be added to them.
You should close the alert when a prisoner is no longer part of that cohort.
The ‘Quarantined’ alert has now been removed and any prisoner who had this on their profile should have one of the new alerts added if relevant.
Digital Prison Services now has full lists so that you can easily see who is in each of the COVID-19 units in your prison. By adding the correct alert to indicate each person’s COVID-19 unit, you will be able to view a list of who has each alert by selecting the ‘View COVID units’ task. You can also see which new arrivals have not had the Reverse Cohort Unit alert added.
33 replies on “Cohorting and Population Management”
A question regarding shilding prisoners please. within the guidance regarding food delivery to the door.(page 16) “Food should be delivered to the cell door or prisoners should collect this individually. Where food is taken to their cell, this should be done with as much space as practical being maintained between the prisoner and the staff member. For instance, the staff member placing the meal in the cell at a point away from the prisoner is a more effective method than passing it from one person to the next”. we have recieved an MPs letter on behalf of one of our shielding men asking why the staff are not wearing gloves? please could you confirm whether this should be a requirement in this situation. many thanks
Hi Dave,
Thanks for your question. The Safe Operating Procedures (SOP) section in the Services A-Z has Safe Operating Procedures (SOP) which outline the safe way of conducting room visits and the PPE required. The primary SOP outlines the PPE requirements and the process which should be followed. Tehre is a secondary SOP for circumstances where some or all PPE is unavailable.
I’ve included a link (https://hmppsintranet.org.uk/prison-ersd/2020/04/15/safe-operating-procedures-sop-using-ppe/). If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.
Cheers
Mike
Hello, I note v2 of cohorting guidance. On page 6 it says there are two exceptional reasons where prisoners will not be required to spend 14 days in a RCU area. The first reason I consider is very similar to a prison transfer and cannot see how a prisoner being escorted by the contractor in a secure vehicle is exposed to the virus more than a one day hospital escort or court. And if a prisoner has been reversed cohorted and discharged from the RCU in a local why then do they need to be reverse cohorted again in the next prison? Have I missed specific guidance on this subject? Currently we are treating transfers in as per new receptions and the 14 day minimum RCU period. If there is no specific guidance I would suggest that this needs looking at and some national direction, as if a local has reverse cohorted then why is the need for the Cat C to repeat that and vice versa and create this bottle neck and pressure on RCU beds. Please advise.
Thanks for getting in touch. This guidance is being reviewed regularly and we are always looking to clarify the process.
All sites are required to achieve a model of cohorting in line with the national guidance, however sites are able to determine what this looks like locally. The guidance therefore leaves space for sites to make this fit their circumstances. All decisions should be based on local risk assessment which takes account of any particular nuance they have to deal with. Governors are encouraged to utilise the defensible decision log where decisions are made that stand outside of the current guidance or extant policy where further guidance has not been provided.
If you have any further queries, please get in touch.
Cheers
Mike
The expectation for staff to discuss shielding with prisoners every 2-3 days and get them to sign a disclaimer is unrealistic at some sites. Forty two percent of my population need to shield, at best I can ensure they are visited using the EDM for key working on a weekly basis, but there are already important and seperate wellbeing expectations for this contact. How we manage shielding now the PHE gudiance has expanded to include vulnerable and high risk as well as exceptionally vulnerable people (increasing my shielding cohort from 5% to 44%), whilst equally relaxing regimes for the other prisoners is now our No1 problem.
Hi Emma,
Thanks for getting in touch.
The 2 or 3 day review you refer to was ony meant as an example of appropriate follow up and is not intended as a dictat. Management locally will be responsible for establishing what they deem to be an acceptable risk. The below extract is from the FAQs on cohorting:
9) In the community a person would be able to make their own decision about whether they decide to shield or not. Therefore, in the prison setting it is not appropriate for us to force someone to shield if they do not wish to. We recommend that prison staff and healthcare discuss with those who do not wish to shield the benefits of shielding and the potential consequences if they become unwell. Such conversations should be recorded on NOMIS and the COVID-19 Defensible Decision Log. The prisoner should be monitored regularly to check they are well, and establishments should consider revisiting such conversations regularly to remind prisoners of the risks of not shielding.
We have reviewed the Shielding disclaimer and recognise the issue posed by the instruction to complete a disclaimer at every conversation. In light of this feedback, we have amended the shielding disclaimer to remove the need for it to be repeat in this way. So long as there is a clear record of the advice being given to those declining to shield, this will suffice.
If you have any further queries, please let me know.
Cheers
Mike
Hi Mike
The shielding disclaimer on this site still says 2/3 days for review. Do yuo have the latest disclaimer?
Hi Kerry,
We haven’t updated this yet. Until the new disclaimer is out, i would advise using the old one but advising people and annotating the current document to the effect that you won’t be conducting reviews of their decision unless they a) approach staff to advise they have changed their mind or b) that the position on shielding changes (I believe this is the approach you are proposing taking; if I have misunderstood, please amend in accordance with your defensible decision).
We are in the process of adjusting all of the cohorting guidance and hope to have this released by the end of the month.
Cheers
Mike
Hi Mike,
We have reconfigured our entire population in order to create 2x RCUS, 2xPIUs, 5xShielding Units and 3 Essential Workers Units. We had to adapt in this way because we have a split site of mains prisoners and sex offenders.
In the early day’s we were Identified as an outbreak site. Last week we told by OCT we are no longer an outbreak site which is great news as our strategy and hard work has paid and For the last 5 days no Covid cases.
We are not complacent, we know we could encounter a spike at anytime, and our infection control, cleaning programmes and social distancing enforcement is more important than ever.
As a Category C establishment and an outbreak site we had transfers into our establishment suspended in order for us to gain control and we decanted 100 men in order to create headroom. This meant we haven’t received new receptions for several weeks.
We have been advised this week that because we are no longer an outbreak site, we will be required to start taking new receptions soon.
Of course we understand this core element of our delivery, and with our local feeder prison becoming an outbreak Site, this adds greater complexity for population management.
We have been diligently preparing for intake via meetings and via a new transfer/RCU implementation plan. However, I have a technical issue I would like to raise for advice regarding a key element of this delivery.
We have almost 370 extremely vulnerable/vulnerable prisoners that are cohosted ( 100% of sex offenders Shielded and 92% Cat Cs shielded). We have also been nullifying our shared cells from a starting point of 93 shared cells to currently 20 shared cells occupied in order to support Jo Farrars call for single cell living and to nullify the infection spread. All these elements have worked. Our shielding units are almost full so opening up RCUs to accept prisoners needs to be planned.
What is the National instruction The transfer of extremely Vulnerable men Who are shielding, are they remaining shielded in locals due to the risk of transfer? We need to know this as this will impact on our planning of spaces, our cohorting and shielding strategy.
If not this would mean that extremely vulnerable men Who need shielding will arrive onto our RCU for 14 days, then what?
I am not confident that population management would factor this level of detail into their planning so what national strategy/guidance is available to support this position?
Another risk for us is : if there isn’t an extremely vulnerable freeze on transfers or if population Management don’t take this factor into account when planning transfers. We would have to locate the extremely vulnerable man (men) onto our dual purpose RCU and PIU which isn’t Ideal and is an additional risk.
What is the national guidance for this specific Issue?
Kind regards
Samantha McDermott
Hi Sam,
Thanks for getting in touch. The current Transfer Protocol guidance above outlines that those who are Shielding or eligible for Shielding should not be trasferred. This would include all prisoners in this cohort. Any individual cases where this was deemed necessary would need to be risk assessed and approved by Gold.
Hope that helps? Please let us know if we can help further.
Cheers
Mike
Hi,
Incoming transfer and a prisoner has a mobile phone within, surely he goes to the Segregation unit and not the RCU?
Hi Carl,
Thanks for getting in touch. Where there is a security risk which needs to be managed, the appropriate action should be taken in line with the Operational Tasks SOP. I would suggest that in this case, once the security risk has passed and there is no reason to hold the man in segregation, they could be returned thrugh the appropriate local cohorting process.
Hope that helps? Please let us know if not.
Cheers
Mike
Hi Mike,
As requested, we have carried out the work of transposing our Extremely Vulnerable men into nomis alerts – we have 167 extremely vulnerable men tagged on nomis.
We also have 191 vulnerable men scattered across the establishment and not shielding, as per national guidance.
Due to the complexity of our site we have 4 shielding units as we have a split site of general population Cat Cs and Sex Offender Cat Cs.
Regionally they request our cohorting figures including shielding numbers.
We currently report the entire unit on our regional return as the unit are all shielding as one cohort, whether vulnerable or extremely vulnerable. It is considered that they are still shielding simply due to the cohort status.
If we don’t put an alert on how do we capture their current status or is this not required for all?
For us this totals 406 men shielding on 4 Units, as 239 are vicariously shielding (not EVs) due to the requirements of applying shielding as per PHE Guidelines.
My question: Should we be creating a NOMIS Shielding alert for all these men or just the ones who are EVs …. and how will this effect collation of data and population management moving forward?
Kind Regards
Sam
Hi Sam,
I think the answer to this is that we should only be identifying those who are Shieling as Shielders. Although it should be encouraged for all who are eligible, prisoners have the right to refuse to shield and they should be identifyng as refusing to shield. I assume ‘vicarious’shielding is voluntary but not a requirement and should the population pressures present themselves, those men could be moved off of the shielding unit to mak way for those who need it? If that is the case and it’s not medically recommended that they shield, i don’t think we should be considering them as shielding.
Hope that all makes sense? Let me know if you ene anything further.
Cheers
Mike
Hi,
I am after a definitive response around resetting isolation periods due to a symptomatic or Covid 19+ve prisoner. We are an open prison, our RCU is billet style but with ensuite facilities etc. the men are treated as a household for RCU purposes. The men arrive and do 14 reverse isolation, on a man testing +ve this has reset to 14 days for everyone. We have been told that should a second man test positive in the 14 day window this will be reset for everyone again and possibly again should a third man test positive down the line. This is not the same as community guidance for a household. I was referred to our HMPPS guidance page 7 where it was suggested that it stated the repeated resetting was described, however it isn’t that clear to me. I may of course have misinterpretted the guidance. I understand that if we added a new person to the household that reverse isolation would restart but the diagram on the GOV.UK website refers to a person becoming symptomatic at day 13 and the other household members can end isolation while they do another 7 days isolated. With 10 men on our RCU if each one became symptomatic one after the other and isolation was reset each time they could be blocking our RCU for months and levels of frustration amongst this group of men would increase.
Many Thanks.
Hi Louise,
Thanks for getting in touch.
Appreciate that things are really complicated at teh moment and guidance isn’t always perfectly clear for every curcumstane.
If a member of a household tests positive for COVID-19 the remainder of that household should isolate for 14 days from the date the person with the positive test began showing symptoms. This only applies if the household remains consistent. If we are adding new people to the household and one of them tests positive, then the isolation period resets based on that persons symptoms.
We are reviewing Cohorting Guidance at the moment and will look to ensure this point is clarified.
Please elt me know if you need anything else.
Cheers
Mike
Hi Mike thanks for the quick response, in the clarification can you please address the issue of a third or fourth man testing positive at the latter stages of the isolation period, without the addition to the household is considered and responded to? As this is where our issues lie due to the men not being secure in a single cell, (as you may be aware accommodation in open doesn’t lend itself to RCU at cellular level). Current advice we are receiving is contradicting the currently published diagram on the GOV.UK website. Help clarifying this would be appreciated.
For hospital transfers does the prisoner need to reverse cohort? or are there procedures in place at secure unit/hospital?
Hi Jasmine,
Thanks for getting in touch. It’s a good question. I’ve spoken to the guidance authors and as we can’t guarantee the systems that hospitals and secure units have in place, we would advise that RCU is appropriate. You may want to consider the risk of this locally and speak with the hospital but if you decide not to RCU, we would advise you to outline the reasoning in your Defensible Decision Log.
Hopefully this is helpful? Please let us know if you need any further advice.
Cheers
Mike
Following the new guidence for shielding. Do we still have to get disclaimers signed every 3 days or weekly or just an inititial disclaimer?
Hi Kerry,
thans for getting in touch. We are currently conducting a full review of the cohorting guidance and hope to have clearer lines out soon. Until then, whilst we continue to offer shielding as an option, we should continue to record those who decline via the disclaimer. However, if this is only revisited if Shielding is restarted nationlly, I would recommend you record in your defensible decision log that you have taken this approach.
I hope this helps. Please let us know if you need anyhting further.
Cheers
Mike
Hi Mike
Thank you. Just to be clear does the below process meet the criteria now shielding has changed
1. All shielders are offered shielding. Letter sent by healthcare
2. All prisoners that decline will sign a disclaimer and be told to inform healthcare or an officer should they change their minds.
This would mean 1 initial disclaimer for all that refuse but no follow up disclaimers. Process documented in the defensible decision log
My only concern is the disclaimer form itself would need to be amended
Hi Kerry,
That reads like a reasonable adjustment based on the circumstances. As part of the Cohorting review, we will look to update all the templates. Until then, as long as the relevant factors which have changed are detailed and noted during the discussion, that should factor into the defensible decision.
Hoe that helps.
Cheers
Mike
Hi Mike
When prisoners have exercise on the PIU can the PIU prisoners exercise together as there may not be time in the day to exercise them individually.
Hi Kerry,
We would advise that prisoners isolating should not exercise with other isolating prisoners. It is plausible that whilst having symptoms, an isolating person may not have the virus and we put the at risk of picking it or a different strain up by exercising them together. I would suggest speaking with your PHE Health and Justice lead for your area to try and quantify the risk. If you do decie to exercise two people in PIU together, you should register this in your defensible decision log.
Let me know if you need anything further.
Cheers
Mike
Hi
Now the new cohorting guidence is out can we have a new disclaimer document that does not say we have to continue to ask and that prisoners should request shielding if they change their mind following the first disclaimer.
Hi Kerry,
I have updated the disclaimer in line with the changes to shielding in the community as requested.
I hope this is helpful. Any issues please let us know.
Thanks,
Sian
With the isolation period after a contact reduced from 14 to 10 days in the community, will this have an impact on the amount of time prisoners need to cohort, i.e is the default cohorting time likely to drop from 14 to 10?
Hi George,
We have reflected this change in isolation in the PIU section of v5 of the Cohorting and Compartmentalisation Strategy (issued 17/12) such that any prisoner who has had contact with a positive case now must only isolate for 10 days. The reverse cohorting period remains at 14 days.
Hope this helps?
Sian Blake
Hello,
We are looking to increase the number of RC cohorts we have from 1 to 2.
The impact on time out delivery would make this difficult if we had to maintain a period of 4 hours between shower slots, Can you confirm that this is still the case and what we could use or deploy to mitigate a reduction in the time.
I’m currently trawling through the advice on this website trying to find definitive guidance but to date I am not successful
Regards
Graham
Hi Graham,
If you could get in contact with us at COVID19.Regimes&OpsGuidance@justice.gov.uk and share a bit more information about what it is you are looking to do and the specifics of your regime currently/what you wish to change I will be able to advise you further.
Thanks a lot,
Sian Blake
I need to know if someone is Clinically extreamely vulnerable and refuses to shield, do we have a duty of care to protect them and not allow them to work?
Hi Elizabeth,
Please could you share a bit more info with us via COVID19.Regimes&OpsGuidance@justice.gov.uk including whether this is in relation to a member of staff or prisoner and we will do our best to assist.
Thanks,
Sian Blake