Narratives of Health in Prison

In this paper I want to talk about the use of narrative to explore health issues in prisons. I begin with a discussion of story, the part it plays in our lives and its use in research. After that I discuss a narrative study of health care in three British prisons, in which I was involved some years ago. The study allowed us to gain access to aspects of the experience of prisoners, even though we did not work directly with them, but rather with custody officers and health care professionals. My intention is to argue for the use of narrative in this research, and then to share some of our findings in discussing the importance, not only of providing prisoners with health care that is as good as that available to others, but of arranging continuity of care when they leave prison. En route I shall draw attention to some ethical issues.