Prison
Cat B, YOI, local, remand, resettlement
Key Concerns Identified
Positive Findings
Peterborough (men)
IMB Annual Report 2024 · Published 7 November 2024
HMP/YOI Peterborough (Men) is a category B remand, local and reception/resettlement prison run by Sodexo Justice Services, with an operational capacity of 944. The reporting year was challenging due to population pressures, staff shortages, and management changes, resulting in a restricted regime and impacted prisoner morale. Despite efforts to maintain safety, concerns persist regarding purposeful activity, healthcare provision, and the quality of key work.
Positive Findings
The prison has been seen to work hard to create a safe environment. The management of those prisoners at risk of suicide and self-harm is well structured, professional and compassionate, and the ACCT system is properly used. Relations between staff and prisoners remain good, with officers showing compassion and dedication, even during staff shortages. New prisoners are received in a humane and caring manner, and mental healthcare provision has improved over the year with more effective communication and triage.
Key Concerns
Regime/Time Out of Cell
Repeated
The impact of population pressures, staff shortages, management changes, and the lack of good-quality, purposeful activity is adversely impacting on prisoners, leading to planned restrictions of regime, curtailed exercise and time out of cell, and suffering prisoner morale.
Regime/Time Out of Cell
Repeated
Key work was not carried out consistently to the required standard.
Healthcare
Repeated
Gaps in how the healthcare unit deals with patient complaints and a lack of communication addressing prisoners’ concerns, with healthcare being the principal reason for IMB applications.
Mental Health
A very long waiting list for mental healthcare provision, and the prison was without a psychiatrist for much of the reporting year.
Mental Health
Too many prisoners with severe mental health issues have to be restricted in the healthcare unit, or segregated in the care and separation unit, often for long periods.
Complaints/Property
Managers’ responses to complaints are too often considered to be incomplete, terse and dismissive.
Board Commentary
Staffing
The prison has faced severe and worrying staff shortages, with high sickness levels, high turnover, and staff secondments to other prisons. Frontline PCO and senior PCO staffing has been particularly challenging due to PCOs leaving soon after training, leading to a lack of experienced officers on wings and difficulty in maintaining a reasonable regime. There has also been considerable instability in the management team, with Directors seconded and new, inexperienced middle managers needing to cover critical posts, increasing workload for experienced staff.
Healthcare
The new primary physical and mental healthcare provider, Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (NHFT), took a long time to settle in, with initial insufficient staffing impacting services and timely medication issuance, though this improved. An in-year CQC inspection reported reasonable quality of care, but prisoners remain unhappy, and healthcare issues are the principal reason for IMB applications. The Board noted gaps in how complaints are handled and communication with prisoners regarding their concerns.
Regime & Daily Life
The Board's principal concern is the lack of a decent and rehabilitative regime, adversely impacting prisoners due to population pressures, staff shortages, and management changes. Wings are too often locked down at short notice, curtailing work, education, library access, and association, limiting daily time out of cell. Exercise and gym sessions are frequently cancelled or rescheduled, and the range and quality of work are narrow, with insufficient spaces for men who wish to work.
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 | 20 | |
| Canteen, facility list, catalogues | 11 | 13 | |
| Discipline, including adjudications, incentives scheme, sanctions | 4 | 9 | |
| Equality | 9 | 9 | — |
| Finance, including pay, private monies, spends | 27 | 32 | |
| Food and kitchens | 14 | 8 | |
| Health, including physical, mental, social care | 119 | 87 | |
| Letters, visits, telephones, public protection, restrictions | 48 | 33 | |
| Miscellaneous | 67 | 39 | |
| Property during transfer or in another facility | 39 | 12 | |
| Property within the establishment | 66 | 42 | |
| Purposeful activity, including education, work, training, time out of cell | 45 | 21 | |
| Sentence management, including HDC (home detention curfew), ROTL (release on temporary licence), parole, release dates, re-categorisation | 37 | 38 | |
| Staff/prisoner concerns, including bullying | 61 | 74 | |
| Transfers | 7 | 11 |
Recommendations (4)
Ministry of Justice: 1
HMPPS: 1
Governor / Director: 2
2 repeated
Recommendation 1
Repeated
Prev. unaddressed
How does the Minister intend to reduce the time some men are held on remand?
Ministry of Justice
Overcrowding
Response
The Government is deploying a raft of measures to improve the justice system.
Recommendation 2
When will HMPPS increase the provision or licensing of approved accommodation to which men can be safely released?
HMPPS
Resettlement
Recommendation 3
Repeated
Prev. unaddressed
What steps will the Director take to embed quality key work?
Governor / Director
Regime
Response
Keywork remains a priority.
Recommendation 4
How does the prison plan to continue to improve the quality of education, skills training and work provided and better target these on opportunities after release?
Governor / Director
Education, Purposeful Activity, Resettlement