Prison
Cat YOI
Key Concerns Identified
Positive Findings
Peterborough (Women)
IMB Annual Report 2020 · Published 20 August 2020
This annual report for HMP/YOI Peterborough (Women) highlights overall fair and humane treatment of prisoners, with a good regime offering ample time out of cell. Positive developments include improved safety resources, healthcare governance, and the successful rollout of the OMiC programme. Key concerns, however, persist regarding the lack of suitable accommodation on release, challenges in managing women with complex needs, and a significant rise in self-harm incidents.
Positive Findings
The Board finds that prisoners are generally treated fairly, humanely, and with decency, and preparations for release are good. There have been significant improvements in safety resources and management, healthcare governance, and property management, and promising developments in induction processes for new arrivals. The OMiC programme has been successfully implemented with positive initial feedback. The regime offers good time out of cell, and family provision is strong. There has also been progress in identifying and reducing disadvantages for protected groups, and the multi-faith chaplaincy team is commended for their support.
Key Concerns
Resettlement/Release
Repeated
The lack of suitable accommodation for women on release remains a significant concern, with 36% of women lacking settled accommodation, hindering efforts to reduce reoffending.
Mental Health
Repeated
The management of women with complex needs is challenging; some are segregated for long periods with limited regimes, and the prison lacks resources for appropriate interventions and an on-site forensic psychologist.
Safety
Repeated
Despite increased focus on safety, there has been a significant increase in self-harm incidents (1697 compared to 939 last year), largely from a few prolific self-harmers, and substance misuse remains an issue.
Estate/Conditions
In-cell toilets are not screened for privacy, particularly in shared cells, and improved in-cell facilities for women with disabilities are required, as wing cells lack essential aids like grab rails and raised toilet seats.
Equality/Diversity
Equality issues persist, including difficulties in sourcing specific canteen products for Black, Asian and minority ethnic prisoners and a high number of racial discrimination reports (46 out of 76).
Estate/Conditions
The poor quality of mattresses and difficulty obtaining replacements are noted complaints impacting prisoner well-being.
Board Commentary
Staffing
Staff recruitment and training are managed locally, and the Offender Management in Custody (OMiC) or key worker scheme was successfully rolled out, with positive early feedback from prisoners before its suspension due to COVID-19. Staffing challenges persist in healthcare, with vacant mental health team positions and difficulties recruiting permanent staff in some areas (teachers, healthcare, gym). Delays in vetting care staff have also been noted.
Healthcare
Healthcare governance and delivery have improved under a new head of healthcare, with recruitment of permanent staff. GP waiting times average 4.7 days, dentistry four weeks, and ophthalmology two weeks. The nurse-led well-woman clinic is well-regarded, but there is no physiotherapy provision. The 12-bed healthcare unit is concerning due to the limited regime and lack of therapeutic activities for complex needs women. The mental health team has suffered from a lack of an on-site psychologist and vacant positions, and social care referrals decreased due to staff no longer being prison-based.
Regime & Daily Life
The overall prison regime is good, with prisoners averaging 11.9 hours out of cell daily, significantly above target. However, access to purposeful activities is inconsistent; library sessions are sometimes cancelled, and gym sessions, especially at weekends, suffer from closures due to staff deployment. Women with complex needs held in the healthcare unit face a limited regime and lack therapeutic activities.
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 | 23 | 17 | |
| Canteen, facility list, catalogue(s) | 11 | 23 | |
| Discipline, including adjudications, IEP, sanctions | 4 | 3 | |
| Equality | 5 | 3 | |
| Finance, including pay, private monies, spends | 15 | 19 | |
| Food and kitchens | 4 | 15 | |
| Health, including physical, mental, social care | 53 | 61 | |
| Letters, visits, telephones, public protection restrictions | 57 | 17 | |
| Property during transfer or in another establishment or location | 9 | 16 | |
| Property within this establishment | 32 | 31 | |
| Purposeful activity, including education, work, training, library, regime, time out of cell | 25 | 22 | |
| Sentence management including HDC, ROTL, parole, release dates, recategorisation | 23 | 17 | |
| Staff/prisoner concerns, including bullying | 65 | 85 | |
| Transfers | 9 | 3 |
Recommendations (3)
Ministry of Justice: 1
HMPPS: 1
Governor / Director: 1
2 repeated
Recommendation 1
Repeated
The Board remains concerned about the lack of suitable accommodation for women on release (see paragraph 11.3), as proper resourcing of accommodation could be cost-effective in reducing reoffending.
Ministry of Justice
Resettlement
Recommendation 2
Repeated
The Board remains concerned that some women with complex needs have been segregated for long periods with a limited regime (see paragraph 6.2). The prison does not have provision for appropriate interventions for some of these cases, and the Board considers that the national complex needs team should be more proactive in considering transfers to other secure establishments with suitable programmes.
HMPPS
Mental Health
Recommendation 3
The Board asks the Director to consider implementing small improvements which would benefit the quality of life for prisoners – for example, improved bedding (see paragraph 7.13), better sourcing of products for the canteen (see paragraph 7.9), and improved in-cell facilities for women with disabilities (see paragraph 7.3).
Governor / Director
Quality of Life