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SONAR CMS and Resettlement

smay46

Updated: Dec 6, 2024

One of our motivations in developing SONAR was to bridge the gap between healthcare systems in different parts of criminal justice - to leave the silos behind. Failures of information transfer between agencies are a regular cause of serious harm as attested by coroners’ reports.


An example is the transition between prison and probation - sometimes called “resettlement”. As the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Justice said in June, the latest data on resettlement is “encouraging”: over the last decade, the proportion of prisoners that reoffend within twelve months has fallen from 50 per cent to 38 per cent. The question is how to do even better, and we think SONAR can help.


One area where progress is needed is access to healthcare information, which is at the heart of the SONAR offer. Writing in May, the National Audit Office pointed out that the NHS does not always share prison leavers’ healthcare records and data with outside agencies without consent, including probation services. As a result, prison and probation staff do not necessarily know whether someone has been referred for drug treatment on release. HMPPS told the NAO researchers that this can hinder probation staff from ensuring that prison leavers engage with treatment.


For the NAO, participation in drug treatment is one of the key measures of resettlement (along with employment and settled accommodation). Only 37 per cent of prison leavers with a substance misuse treatment referral were engaged in community-based treatment within three weeks of release in 2021-22, the most recent data available.


SONAR is designed to solve precisely these problems. SONAR Secure (holding healthcare information for prisons and other custodial environments) and the SONAR Release Support Hub (for people transitioning back into the community) share information seamlessly. They comply fully with NHS and criminal justice standards on privacy. The Release Support Hub is designed to support probation teams after release - for example, by flagging when an ex-offender has missed a medical or other appointment.


Levels of reoffending have fallen but the cost of reoffending to society is around £17 billion per year on the last Ministry of Justice estimate. As the NAO report said: “Prison leavers are more likely to reoffend if they are not resettled into the community, for example if they have nowhere to live, no job or other income, and have poor continuity of healthcare.” Let’s see what we can do to help.


John White

Founder and CEO


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