Prison
Cat C
Key Concerns Identified
Positive Findings
Holme House
IMB Annual Report 2020 · Published 18 August 2021
The reporting year was dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic, significantly impacting HMP Holme House's operations, leading to restricted regimes and reduced purposeful activity. While staff were commended for their initial pandemic response and improvements were seen in staff culture and complaint handling, key concerns persist. These include issues with decency standards, inadequate education provision, and persistent delays in mental health transfers and resolving police referrals, with the Board's monitoring capacity constrained by restrictions.
Positive Findings
The Board commended staff for effectively managing the initial COVID-19 lockdown, ensuring minimum infection and prisoner stability. Positive transformations were observed in reception and healthcare waiting areas, alongside significant communal area painting. Staff culture improved under the new Governor, enhancing relations and reducing segregation use. Healthcare, especially GP access, saw minimal waiting times, and the mental health team received an award. Complaint response times improved significantly, and a high percentage of released prisoners secured accommodation and financial support.
Key Concerns
Estate/Conditions
Repeated
Unscreened WCs in cells remain an unsatisfactory level, many of which are shared, which does not comply with national standards for physical decency and is inhumane given increased in-cell time and meals eaten in cells.
Estate/Conditions
Repeated
Damaged floors and poor quality showers remain ongoing decency concerns, having been issues for some years.
Regime/Time Out of Cell
Repeated
The prisoner induction programme has not been satisfactory for a few years, with incoming prisoners not receiving appropriate and timely induction.
Education/Purposeful Activity
Education needs to progress to ensure men can make up for lost time due to pandemic restrictions.
Mental Health
Repeated
Unacceptable delays persist in transferring seriously ill patients to mental health hospitals or secure units due to a shortage of available beds.
Other
182 outstanding police referrals, some dating back to 2018, remain unresolved, potentially undermining justice for accused or victims.
Healthcare
Repeated
Access to dental care remains problematic, limited to emergency appointments, with waiting lists around 200.
Board Commentary
Staffing
Staffing levels were severely affected by COVID-19, leading to high sickness and self-isolation, which hindered information flow. Low nursing staff levels were often covered by long-term agency and bank nurses. The offender management unit also experienced staff redeployments. Despite these challenges, key worker schemes were adapted to provide differentiated contact for priority and other prisoners, and a positive shift in staff culture was noted under new leadership.
Healthcare
Healthcare services experienced significant disruption and staffing issues due to COVID-19, particularly after Spectrum took over leadership in April 2020. Despite this, house block-based services ensured minimal waiting times for GP appointments. Dental services were largely restricted to emergencies, resulting in a long waiting list of around 200. Mental health referrals generally had short waiting times, though transfers for seriously ill patients continued to face unacceptable delays due to bed shortages.
Regime & Daily Life
The prison's regime was severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, with most prisoners locked in their cells for 23 hours a day for significant periods. Time out of cell and exercise were drastically reduced, initially to statutory minimums. Towards the year-end, some activities like gym, library, and cell-based education restarted, and the total number of available purposeful activity places was reduced to approximately 490.
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 | 10 | 22 | |
| Discipline, including adjudications, IEP, sanctions | 5 | 11 | |
| E1 Letters, visits, telephones, public protection restrictions | 24 | 42 | |
| E2 Finance, including pay, private monies, spends | 11 | 15 | |
| Equality | 5 | 8 | |
| F Food and kitchens | 4 | 11 | |
| G Health, including physical, mental, social care | 46 | 107 | |
| H1 Property within this establishment | 18 | 59 | |
| H2 Property during transfer or in another establishment or location | 26 | 54 | |
| H3 Canteen, facility list, catalogue(s) | 4 | 24 | |
| I Sentence management, including HDC, release on temporary licence, parole, release dates, recategorisation | 20 | 92 | |
| J Staff/prisoner concerns, including bullying | 6 | 59 | |
| K Transfers | 28 | 30 | |
| L Miscellaneous, including complaints system | 0 | 0 | |
| Purposeful activity, including education, work, training, library, regime, time out of cell | 9 | 29 |
Recommendations (3)
Ministry of Justice: 1
HMPPS: 1
Governor / Director: 1
2 repeated
Recommendation 1
Repeated
Prev. unaddressed
The Board would like to see the funding necessary for repairs as well as funding previously approved, to be made available expeditiously.
Ministry of Justice
Estate
Recommendation 2
We would like to see this category C training prison delivering better education with demonstrable and improved outcomes for resettlement.
HMPPS
Education, Resettlement
Recommendation 3
Repeated
Prev. unaddressed
We would like to see the prisoner induction programme improve significantly, as it has deteriorated over the last four years.
Governor / Director
Regime
Other IMB Reports for Holme House
HMIP Inspections
Recent inspections by HM Inspectorate of Prisons for this establishment.
6 Mar 2023
Unannounced
Safety: 3
Respect: 4
Activity: 2
Release: 3
PPO Fatal Incidents
Prisons and Probation Ombudsman fatal incident investigations for this establishment.