Prison
Cat Local, Female, YOI
Key Concerns Identified
Positive Findings
Bronzefield
IMB Annual Report 2022 · Published 5 January 2023
HMP/YOI Bronzefield, a female local/YOI prison, held an average of 480 prisoners during the reporting year. While offering a generally safe environment and some positive regime initiatives like new gym sessions and an ESME room, the prison faced significant challenges. Key issues included rising self-harm incidents, severe staff shortages curtailing the regime and services, and persistent problems with resettlement accommodation for released prisoners.
Positive Findings
The Board observed that HMP/YOI Bronzefield generally provides a physically safe environment for prisoners and that staff and prisoner relationships were mostly positive. The new ESME room and wellbeing centre with enhanced gym sessions were well-received. Initiatives like the introduction of international festive meals, improved antenatal care, and a baby massage programme were appreciated. Education provision was rated 'Good' by Ofsted, and services like Shades of Beauty and Vita Nova reopened, offering valuable training and activities.
Key Concerns
Safety
The incidences of self-harm, particularly from a few prolific self-harmers, continued to increase putting themselves at serious risk.
Staffing
Consistently high level of staff shortages and inexperienced staff, particularly at weekends, led to a severely curtailed regime and pressure on healthcare and substance misuse services.
Equality/Diversity
The prison lacked strategic oversight of diversity and equality, and its diversity action plan was not based on prisoner needs, leading to concerns about inconsistent staff treatment and communication for foreign nationals.
Complaints/Property
Many complaints deemed to have been responded to within timescales were only interim responses, with final responses significantly delayed beyond the required one week.
Mental Health
The use of the prison as a place of safety for prisoners with very complex mental health conditions is ongoing and places pressure on the healthcare unit and residential houseblocks due to a lack of secure inpatient mental health beds.
Substance Misuse
The provision of the substance misuse service, used by approximately 40% of the prison population, has been severely curtailed due to staff shortages, drastically reducing group therapy sessions.
Resettlement/Release
A survey indicated that 65% of 100 sentenced prisoners were discharged to unsustainable accommodation, highlighting a significant and ongoing problem in the provision of resettlement support.
Board Commentary
Staffing
The prison experienced consistently high staff shortages and inexperienced staff, particularly at weekends, leading to a severely curtailed regime and increased stress on staff managing prolific self-harmers. Total staff sickness days increased by 41%. The substance misuse service was severely curtailed due to a drastic reduction in recovery workers and therapy sessions. Many prisoners were unaware of the key worker programme, and low-level rule-breaking often went unchallenged due to staff availability issues.
Healthcare
Healthcare services faced significant pressure due to the ongoing use of the prison as a place of safety for prisoners with complex mental health conditions, with 38 prisoners received for this reason. The SystmOne electronic clinical system frequently crashed, impairing service delivery and medication prescribing. Delays were noted in bowel cancer screening (8-week wait), breast screening (up to 22-week wait), cervical smears, and hepatitis C testing due to resource and staffing issues. The average wait time for mental health transfers was 32 days against a 28-day target.
Regime & Daily Life
The daily regime was frequently curtailed throughout the year, especially at weekends, primarily due to severe staff shortages. This led to inconsistent communication to both prisoners and staff regarding expectations. Time out of cell varied significantly depending on Covid-19 restrictions, with group sizes increasing as the prison moved to a more normal regime. Purposeful activity like ROTL was suspended for most of the year, although education restarted in classrooms and a comprehensive gym timetable was introduced and well-received.
Applications to the IMB
Prisoners can apply to their IMB about any aspect of their treatment. This table shows application counts by category.
| Category | Current | Previous | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Accommodation, including laundry, clothing, ablutions | 19 | 51 | |
| Canteen, facility list, catalogue(s) | 14 | 17 | |
| Discipline, including adjudications, incentives scheme, sanctions | 5 | 1 | |
| Equality | 12 | 8 | |
| Finance, including pay, private monies, spends | 17 | 2 | |
| Food and kitchens | 12 | 12 | — |
| Health, including physical, mental, social care | 47 | 96 | |
| Letters, visits, telephones, public protection restrictions | 13 | 37 | |
| Miscellaneous, including complaints system | 40 | 47 | |
| Property during transfer or in another establishment or location | 7 | 3 | |
| Property within this establishment | 30 | 17 | |
| Purposeful activity, including education, work, training, library, regime, time out of cell | 7 | 19 | |
| Sentence management, including HDC, release on temporary licence, parole, release dates, recategorisation | 10 | 17 | |
| Staff/prisoner concerns, including bullying | 80 | 28 | |
| Transfers | 8 | 7 |
Recommendations (7)
Ministry of Justice: 2
HMPPS: 2
Governor / Director: 1
Other: 2
1 repeated
Recommendation 1
Following reunification of the probation services in June 2021, the survey undertaken by the Board in early 2022 found there continued to be a significant problem in the provision of accommodation for prisoners on release. What are the Minister’s plans for this issue to be addressed urgently? (See paragraph 7.5.3.)
Ministry of Justice
Resettlement
Recommendation 1
The number of self-harm incidents has continued to rise to an average of 238 incidents a month. Given that a few prolific self-harmers account for a high proportion of these incidents, how does the Prison Service plan to provide support to the prison to manage these extremely challenging prisoners? (See section 4.2.)
HMPPS
Safety
Recommendation 1
What plans are in place to manage a smooth transition to the new healthcare services contract? (See paragraph 6.1.1.)
Governor / Director
Healthcare
Recommendation 1
Repeated
What has the Mayor’s office for policing and crime done in the last year to increase the availability of accommodation for those prisoners who leave prison with no fixed abode? Will the Mayor provide a response to this issue which the Board has raised annually since 2017? (See paragraphs 7.5.1 and 7.5.2, 7.5.3.)
Other
(other)
Resettlement
Recommendation 2
Given the complex issues raised, what are the Minister’s plans for the management of transgender prisoners? (See paragraphs 5.4.16, 5.4.17 and 5.4.18.)
Ministry of Justice
Equality
Recommendation 2
What is the Prison Service’s response to the recommendations arising from the IMB equality and diversity survey? (See paragraph 5.4.6.)
HMPPS
Equality
Recommendation 2
What steps does the Mayor plan to take to address the problem of home detention curfew (HDC) checks not being carried out in a timely manner and prisoners therefore not being released on HDC? (See paragraph 7.5.6.)
Other
(other)
Resettlement
Other IMB Reports for Bronzefield
PPO Fatal Incidents
Prisons and Probation Ombudsman fatal incident investigations for this establishment.