Prison doctors: ethics, invisibility, and quality.

Smith addresses three areas of concern in his evaluation of prison health care in Britain: the ethical dilemmas faced by prison doctors, the isolation of these practitioners from the medical mainstream, and the quality of care rendered to prisoners. He concludes that prison doctors, who are employees of the Home Office rather than the National Health Service, are handicapped by the organization, invisibility, and lack of accountability of the prison medical system, and that closer cooperation and better communication with physicians outside the system would be beneficial.