Prison
Cat Category B, Local, Remand, Resettlement (Men's); Y
Key Concerns Identified
Positive Findings
Peterborough
IMB Annual Report 2025 · Published 18 November 2025
HMP/YOI Peterborough saw significant improvements in staff recruitment, regime delivery, and healthcare provision, with self-harm management remaining professional. However, the Board remains concerned about inconsistent and poor quality responses to prisoner complaints, poor professional standards among some managers, and persistent issues with medication distribution and social care referrals. The prison faces substantial challenges in adapting to a predominantly remand population for men and differentiating the women's regime.
Positive Findings
The Board reported significant improvements in regime delivery, attributed to successful staff recruitment, a stable directorship, and increased focus on retention. Management of self-harm risk is professional and compassionate, contributing to a generally safe environment for both men and women. Healthcare provision made positive progress, becoming fully staffed by year-end, with a patient engagement lead improving communication and reducing complaints. Key work sessions improved significantly, and purposeful activity, education, and family contact services showed positive developments across both the men's and women's prisons, including new vocational courses and expanded gym access for women.
Key Concerns
Overcrowding
Repeated
The prolonged waiting times for remand prisoners to trial or sentencing continue to be a significant concern, with no visible progress despite government commitments.
Regime/Time Out of Cell
The Prison Service must ensure timely and adequate resourcing for the men's prison to deal with its significantly changed role as a predominantly remand facility.
Regime/Time Out of Cell
Repeated
The Board urges the Director to implement specific steps to differentiate the women's prison, drawing lessons from best practice across the women's estate to deliver tangible benefits for women prisoners, noting a lack of significant progress from the previous year.
Healthcare
The Director needs to ensure specific steps are taken for the men's prison to fully benefit from a multidisciplinary approach, making better use of available resources for prisoner care.
Complaints/Property
The quality of responses to prisoners' complaints remains inconsistent, often inadequate, dismissive, or not promptly implemented, reflecting a lack of respect and empathy. Procedural justice in adjudications is also frustrated by poor quality reporting officer's initial reports.
Staffing
Poor professional standards and behaviours persist among middle and senior managers, including the common use of bad language and poor attendance at and preparation for routine meetings, leading to unprofessional interactions.
Regime/Time Out of Cell
Inconsistency in the application of rules, deterioration in staff and prisoner relationships, increased tensions, aggression, and diminished trust in the system are evident, partly due to poor management behaviours.
Healthcare
Continuing problems persist with the management of prescriptions and the distribution of medication, particularly due to the unavailability of operational staff to cover controlled medication appointments at crucial times.
Healthcare
The social care provider remains concerned that not all prisoner needs are promptly referred for assessment.
Equality/Diversity
More work is needed regarding the wellbeing of older prisoners in both prisons.
Regime/Time Out of Cell
While open air access has improved in the men's prison, more work is needed for women prisoners.
Estate/Conditions
Prisoners regularly raise concerns about inadequate climate control, including heating failures in cold months and a shortage of fans in hot months.
Education/Purposeful Activity
Employment skills opportunities for men have not attracted priority attention due to the change in prison population to predominantly remand.
Board Commentary
Staffing
After a year of staffing pressures, HMP Peterborough successfully undertook large-scale recruitment and is now focused on staff retention. Management turnover has been addressed with a new structure and recruitment of specialist expertise, stabilising the workforce. However, the Board remains concerned about poor professional standards, including bad language, inconsistent rule application, and poor attendance at meetings among some middle and senior managers, which negatively impacts staff-prisoner relationships and trust.
Healthcare
Healthcare services have made positive progress, with a full-time patient engagement lead improving communication and fully staffed services by year-end, reducing mental health waiting times. A working partnership board aids issue resolution. However, the Board remains concerned about medication distribution, specifically the availability of operational staff for controlled medications, and notes that social care referrals are not always prompt. More work is needed on older prisoners' wellbeing, though women's health needs are now better addressed, and the perinatal pathway improved.
Regime & Daily Life
Following serious concerns in the previous year regarding an inhumane regime, the Board is pleased to report that many issues, including restrictions to basic routines and lack of purposeful activity, were addressed in 2024. However, the lack of basic welfare provision for canteen, property, and mail remains a concern. The prison faces a major challenge in adapting the men's regime for a predominantly remand population and plans to develop a differentiated, best-practice regime for the women's prison.
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 | 24 | 30 | |
| Canteen, facility list, catalogues | 16 | 23 | |
| Discipline, including adjudications, incentives scheme, sanctions | 8 | 5 | |
| Equality | 21 | 13 | |
| Finance, including pay, private monies, spends | 21 | 40 | |
| Food and kitchens | 13 | 25 | |
| Health, including physical, mental, social care | 84 | 185 | |
| Letters, visits, telephones, public protection, restrictions | 15 | 72 | |
| Miscellaneous | 45 | 103 | |
| Property during transfer or in another facility | 12 | 43 | |
| Property within the establishment | 13 | 84 | |
| Purposeful activity, including education, work, training, time out of cell | 62 | 61 | |
| Sentence management, including HDC (home detention curfew), ROTL (release on temporary licence), parole, release dates, recategorisation | 29 | 50 | |
| Staff/prisoner concerns, including bullying | 38 | 98 | |
| Transfers | 9 | 10 |
Recommendations (4)
Other: 1
HMPPS: 1
Governor / Director: 2
2 repeated
Recommendation 1
Repeated
Prev. unaddressed
When will the various measures being recommended and discussed to reduce the number of remand prisoners waiting for trial or for sentencing actually start to have a positive impact?
Other
(minister)
Remand Population
Response
The Minister is committed to reducing the caseload and bringing waiting times down and the Judiciary continues to prioritise cases involving custody time limits, as well as prioritising cases that involve vulnerable complainants and witnesses. Some steps have been taken to free up capacity in the Crown Court. ‘The remand population trend that we have seen since early 2020 has continued (a 4% increase between 30 June 2024 and 30 June 2025).’ Source: the offender management statistics quarterly: January to March 2025.
Recommendation 2
In November 2024, the men’s prison was re-roled to hold more than 80% remand prisoners, taking them from the Luton and Bedford catchment. What steps is the Prison Service taking to ensure that the prison is resourced in a timely fashion to deal with this significantly changed role that HMP Peterborough has been required to take on?
HMPPS
Resourcing
Recommendation 3
Repeated
Prev. unaddressed
For the women’s prison, what lessons have been taken from best practice elsewhere in the women’s estate and what specific steps are being taken to make sure that the ambition to differentiate the women’s from the men’s prison result in tangible benefits for women prisoners?
Governor / Director
Women's Regime
Response
Significant investment has been made in the development of a new approach to the management of the women’s prison, and the appointment of a new head of the women’s prison is imminent.
Recommendation 4
For the men’s prison, what specific steps are being taken to ensure that the care of prisoners benefits fully from a multidisciplinary approach that makes better use of the resources now available?
Governor / Director
Healthcare
HMIP Inspections
Recent inspections by HM Inspectorate of Prisons for this establishment.
8 Jan 2024
Unannounced
Safety: 3
Respect: 2
Activity: 1
Release: 2
6 Nov 2023
Unannounced
Safety: 4
Respect: 3
Activity: 1
Release: 3
PPO Fatal Incidents
Prisons and Probation Ombudsman fatal incident investigations for this establishment.