HMP Dovegate, HMIP Inspections

The HMIP carried out an inspection on the main prison in October 2023, and the full report can be found on the links below. In the summary to the main inspection report the inspectors said,

This Serco-run category B prison in Staffordshire had a population of 1,139 when we inspected. The jail had a mix of functions with substantial remand and long-term populations and a therapeutic community holding 16% of the men. The director who took over in January 2023 was the seventh in the last 10 years. This lack of stability meant that the jail had not progressed as much as we would have expected, particularly in our purposeful activity healthy prison test, in which we awarded our lowest score of poor. This was very disappointing because education provision was also run by Serco, so there were none of the contracting issues we see with other prisons; it meant that Dovegate was failing to fulfil its role as a training prison. While most of the long-term population was in work or education, many jobs were on the wings where prisoners were underemployed and spent much of their time with not enough to do. The prison had, however, introduced several enrichment activities such as a film club or gardening, much of which was prisoner led.

Levels of violence were lower than in comparable prisons, but there had been a recent increase in assaults by prisoners on their peers. Staff were often reluctant to challenge low-level behaviour such as vaping or improper dress which meant that the rules were not clear.

The therapeutic community continued to be a thriving and innovative provision. It supported prisoners with complex needs and behaviour to help them to make sense of their past and learn to regulate their behaviour, so they were better able to cope in the future. This included some impressive work with prisoners who had learning difficulties. Ofsted inspectors, however, found the provision of education here even worse than elsewhere in the prison.

Ongoing difficulties with recruiting health care staff meant that provision was fragile. Of particular concern was the care for prisoners who arrived late in the evening who did not always get adequate health screening, which meant that they sometimes did not get essential medication.

Staff worked hard to support prisoners to maintain family links; this included the innovative use of technology to allow some to send and receive text messages.

There was some creative support to reduce prisoners’ risk, complemented by a good range of offending behaviour programmes. These included the best key work we have seen in recent years in the male estate and a therapeutic dog training programme. Shortages of staff however, meant that prison offender managers were often stretched, regular meetings with prisoners did not take place and it was disappointing that nearly a third of prisoners left the jail homeless.

The director’s focus on improving the welfare of staff had paid off. Officers spoke positively about the effect that his arrival had had on the jail, with a renewed sense of purpose and a feeling that the prison was making progress. On the wings, inspectors were impressed by the good relationships they saw between prisoners and staff. Despite sometimes low staffing levels, officers knew their prisoners well.

There is much for the director and his staff to be proud of at Dovegate, and this was reflected in our scores of ‘reasonably good’ in our safety, respect, and preparation for release healthy prison tests. The jail is performing better than most prisons with big remand populations and longer-term prisoners. In the next year, the prison needs to completely reorientate towards education, training, and work, making sure that prisoners have a greater sense of purpose and are better prepared to get work on release. A more productive jail will also lead to a reduction in the high demand for drugs and its consequent violence. If the prison has a sustained period of more stable leadership, I am confident that progress will be made.

 

Charlie Taylor
HM Chief Inspector of Prisons
November 2023

 

The inspectors provider a brief list of their main findinds

 

What needs to improve at HMP Dovegate

 

During this inspection we identified 13 key concerns, of which four should be treated as priorities. Priority concerns are those that are most important to improving outcomes for prisoners. They require immediate attention by leaders and managers.

Leaders should make sure that all concerns identified here are addressed and that progress is tracked through a plan which sets out how and when the concerns will be resolved. The plan should be provided to HMI Prisons.

Priority concerns

  1. Levels of violence and drug use were increasing. Much of this wasfuelled by prisoner boredom; leaders did not deliver a full and purposefulregime that motivated prisoners to behave, engage and progress.
  2. Prisoners with addiction problems or experiencing substancewithdrawal symptoms who arrived late at the prison did not haveaccess to alcohol detoxification or opiate substitution treatment.Health staff did not carry out overnight welfare checks on these newarrivals, which was unsafe and placed prisoners at risk.
  3. Waiting lists for transfers under the Mental Health Act were toolong. In the last six months, five prisoners identified as requiringassessment and treatment in hospital under the Mental Health Act waitedbetween 80 and 201 days to be transferred, which greatly delayedaccess to care and could have had a deleterious effect on their potentialrecovery.
  4. The number and range of vocational training and work activitieswas insufficient. Vulnerable prisoners and those in the therapeuticcentre had access to a limited curriculum. There were too manyunemployed prisoners.

Key concerns

  1. Leaders did not consistently collect and make use of available datato understand the needs of prisoners and to drive improvements.This was particularly evident in work to ensure fair treatment, releaseplanning, and education, skills and work.
  2. Many cells suffered from inadequate ventilation because windowgrilles were broken or blocked. This led to poor living conditions,particularly in shared cells.
  3. Prisoners waited too long to get access to their stored property.Delays of up to six months had led to many complaints from prisonerstrying to get their possessions. Recent efforts had reduced the backlog,but the delay was still around one month.
  4. There were insufficient facilities for prisoners to prepare food andcook for themselves, particularly those serving long sentences.
  5. There were gaps in the provision for prisoners with disabilities.There was, for example, no formal system, training and oversight forprisoners who were supporting their disabled peers with their domesticneeds.
  6. Dentist wait times were too long. Some prisoners had been waitingover 16 weeks for a first appointment, and 22 of the 122 patients in linefor treatment had been waiting up to 39 weeks.
  7. The quality of teaching and training in English, mathematics and inthe main workshops was weak. Ineffective quality assuranceprocesses had not identified these weaknesses. As a result, leaders hadnot provided teachers and training staff with recent training on how toimprove their teaching practice.
  8. Initial advice and guidance to help prisoners to achieve theiremployment aspirations was limited. Advice was not timely; staff didnot review prisoners’ plans usefully and many prisoners did not feel theywere making sufficient progress.
  9. Too many prisoners were released without an address to go to. Inthe last year, 173 of the 600 prisoners released on completion of theirsentence had no accommodation, according to HMPPS data. The prisondid not have a good understanding of this data, and did not hold figureson the accommodation outcome for the many more remand prisonersreleased directly from court.

 

Care Quality Commission regulatory recommendations

– When patients were unable to receive a full healthcare screening on arrival at the prison, not all measures were taken to identify and address immediate risks and prescribing requirements. Patients with identified risk were not always monitored during their first night in custody for signs of deteriorating health. Care and treatment therefore must be provided in a safe way for service users by assessing the risks to their health and safety, doing all that is reasonably practical to mitigate such risks, and ensure the proper and safe management of medicines.

– There was no managerial monitoring of clinical activity on night shifts to ensure risks were identified and mitigated appropriately and leaders had not identified the concerns raised regarding first night risks to patients. Staff relied upon the good will of off duty staff to prescribe out of hours medication remotely. Remote prescribers were not always given the level of information required, resulting in some patients not receiving their prescribed medication on their medication when they needed it. Systems and processes therefore must be established and operated effectively to assess, monitor and improve the quality and safety of services provided, and to assess, monitor and mitigate the risks relating to the health, safety and welfare of service users and others.

Return to HMP Dovegate

To read the full report go to the Ministry of Justice website or follow the links below: This section contains the reports for Dovegate from 2003 until present

 

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