Prison
Cat C resettlement prison
Key Concerns Identified
Positive Findings
Humber
IMB Annual Report 2024 · Published 5 August 2025
HMP Humber, a Category C resettlement prison, experienced significant challenges in 2024 due to high prisoner turnover and population pressures. While the Board commends management's efforts in maintaining safety and improving regime stability, issues persist concerning property loss, inadequate purposeful activity, and cell sharing. Healthcare provision is improving but faces space and recruitment challenges, while key worker schemes are compromised by staffing shortages.
Positive Findings
The Board commends the professionalism and resilience of the Governor and SMT, who tirelessly prioritize safety and work to improve the regime. HMP Humber is generally a safe place for men, with a strong culture of care and effective use of data to counter negative trends. Staff-prisoner relationships are constructive, and significant improvements have been made in managing complaints and healthcare provision, including mental health services. The appointment of a long-term conditions nurse and positive collaboration with local authorities for resettlement are also welcomed.
Key Concerns
Regime/Time Out of Cell
The high level of ‘short time to release’ prisoners has created significant ‘churn’ pressure on all functions within the prison, greatly impacting its ability to offer structure, regime, and support for care and transition into the community.
Education/Purposeful Activity
There were not enough education, skills or workplaces to meet the needs of a quarter of the prison population, and attendance was low.
Resettlement/Release
Too many prisoners were released to no fixed abode or to unsustainable accommodation.
Safety
The prison was not doing enough to tackle the behaviour of perpetrators of violence.
Safety
Violence and self-harm were often related to prisoners being in debt to others.
Healthcare
Some areas of medicines’ management were weak and some clinical areas did not meet infection-control standards, creating unnecessary risk.
Equality/Diversity
There were gaps in the provision for prisoners with disabilities.
Overcrowding
Repeated
256 prisoners were sharing cells designated for single occupancy, which the Board views as unsatisfactory or not decent.
Staffing
Repeated
Key worker figures have been low for most of the year due to staffing pressures and redeployment, severely compromising the effectiveness of the key worker process.
Other
Repeated
The issue of prisoner property loss during transfers between prisons has not improved and continues to be unacceptable, exacerbated by increased churn.
Healthcare
Additional workload from increased population turnover and drug/alcohol influence has impacted healthcare providers, and clinic room space is oversubscribed.
Board Commentary
Staffing
The IMB itself is understaffed, with only four active members against a complement of 16. Within the prison, key worker sessions have been impacted by staffing pressures, leading to redeployments. While there were 57 new staff members and 51 leavers, general healthcare staffing has improved. However, mental health recruitment remains a challenge, leading to reliance on agency support and affecting service delivery.
Healthcare
Healthcare services, primarily provided by Spectrum, have seen improved staffing levels and overall service delivery, particularly in mental health, despite recruitment challenges for the latter. The new long-term conditions nurse is a welcome addition, and the prison proactively addresses potential mental health transfer delays. However, clinic room space is oversubscribed, healthcare accommodation is a concern with rising population, and the lack of 24-hour provision with insufficient day-to-night staff handover remains an issue.
Regime & Daily Life
The prison's designation change to a Category C resettlement prison has led to greatly increased prisoner "churn", impacting regime stability and purposeful activity. Short-sentence prisoners often lack sufficient time to access education or work placements, exacerbating issues like mental health and potentially challenging behavior. While the Governor and SMT are commended for efforts to improve time out of cell and meaningful activity, high population turnover continues to present significant challenges to maintaining a consistent and effective regime.
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 transfers) | 45 | 38 | |
| Charges and Adjudications | 12 | 10 | |
| Healthcare | 46 | 59 | |
| Other | 77 | 103 | |
| Property (current establishment) | 25 | 23 | |
| Property (from previous establishment) | 28 | 21 | |
| Sentence Management | 40 | 32 | |
| Total | 274 | 286 | |
| Visits | 1 | 0 |
Recommendations (4)
Ministry of Justice: 2
HMPPS: 2
2 repeated
Recommendation 1
The Board eagerly awaits HMP Humber’s return to being a training and resettlement prison. When will the Minister consider this return?
Ministry of Justice
Regime/Prison designation
Recommendation 2
Additionally, the Board looks forward to considering the proposed sentencing review and hopes there will be a greater emphasis on non-custodial sentences. Can the Minister provide a timeline for the review?
Ministry of Justice
Sentencing policy
Recommendation 3
Repeated
Prev. unaddressed
Again, regrettably the issue of prisoner property has not improved with regard to prisoners transferring into HMP Humber. Levels of property loss between prisons still continue to be unacceptable. It causes stress to the individuals affected and also significant additional work for the prison staff, together with unnecessary costs to the taxpayer in compensation payments. It has been greatly exacerbated by the ‘churn’ of prisoners, moving around the estate, over the past year. Vague promises of digital changes in the long term are not helping with an immediate and longstanding daily problem. It appears to the Board that a significant cause of these losses is the result of poor contract strategy, which places insufficient onus on the transport provider and ineffective enforcement of performance standards. How and when will the Prison Service address this serious issue?
HMPPS
Property
Recommendation 4
Repeated
The Board is strongly of the opinion that detaining prisoners in shared cells designed for single occupancy for long periods of time is not fair or decent. What steps will the Prison Service take to prevent this happening wherever possible?
HMPPS
Overcrowding/Accommodation
Other IMB Reports for Humber
2022
Published 23 Jun 2023
HMIP Inspections
Recent inspections by HM Inspectorate of Prisons for this establishment.
27 Nov 2023
Unannounced
Safety: 3
Respect: 3
Activity: 2
Release: 3
PPO Fatal Incidents
Prisons and Probation Ombudsman fatal incident investigations for this establishment.