The prison was inspected in November/December 2022. The full reports can be read at the Ministry of Justice web site, just follow the links below. In their latest report the inspectors said:
Hewell is a men’s category B reception prison serving the West Midlands that held 923 men at the time of our inspection, half of whom were unsentenced. When we last inspected in 2019, the prison was in a mess, with high levels of violence and drug use, very low staff morale and prisoners kept in unclean and unsanitary conditions.
I am pleased to report that since the arrival of a charismatic and determined governor, the prison had made excellent progress and was now cleaner, more decent and safer. The governor had rightly focused on transforming the staff culture, working to improve the capability and confidence of staff and raise morale. He used the pandemic lockdown to reinvigorate the prison, creating a vison for the jail and developing his senior team.
As a result, assaults on staff and between prisoners had reduced significantly and the prison felt safe and calm. This had been supported by the introduction of the targeted care pathway (TCP) unit that helped prisoners who were struggling on the main units, and the Oak unit for those who were suffering from more serious mental heath difficulties, many of whom were awaiting transfer to hospital. Both were led by impressive custody managers who had created a strong identity and purpose for each unit and were working successfully with prisoners who, in the past, would have been likely to have spent long periods of time in segregation or unsupported on the main wings.
Senior leaders had invested time and resource in training and supporting custodial managers and supervisory officers and this meant that individual wings were competently led with improved responses to applications and complaints. Living conditions in the jail were also much better; the general environment was well-maintained and clean, and improvements had been made to cells, showers and serveries.
At our last inspection and at our scrutiny visit in August 2020, inspectors highlighted failings in care of prisoners in their early days at Hewell, and disappointingly, this remained a concern. Not all men received a full induction and the regime on the wing holding new arrivals was very limited. We also remained concerned that leaders had not done enough to respond to our previous concerns about the support for those prisoners who are most at risk of self-harm or suicide, and some of the processes to protect the most vulnerable were weak.
Prisoners at Hewell spent far too long in their cells, particularly those who were unemployed who were locked up for 23 hours a day. The provision of education, training and work was rated as inadequate by our Ofsted colleagues, who found that the activities on offer were often not suitable for this population nor did most work placements come with the accreditation that would help prisoners get work when released. Nearly two thirds of prisoners had low-level English and maths and yet there were only 40 places available in these subjects. The prison-wide reading strategy was flimsy and there will need to be greater commitment from the education provider and leaders in the jail to improve prisoners’ reading – this work cannot just be left to Shannon Trust mentors, however committed they might be.
The prison did not improve its score in our rehabilitation and release planning healthy prison test which remained not sufficiently good. Public protection measures were lacking in some important areas, meaning there was not the coordinated planning for many high-risk prisoners held at the prison. Difficulties with booking visits was a source of frustration for prisoners and their families and inspectors never got through when they called the visit booking line.
Overall, this was a positive inspection and the governor and his team have much to be proud of. In the next year there will need to be a focus in improving the education, work and training offer particularly for those prisoners with low levels of literacy. Leaders will need to make sure that prisoners are out of their cells for much longer involved in purposeful activity and are also having opportunities to socialise and eat together. They must also focus on improving the way prisoners are treated in their early days at the jail and commit to following up recommendations from the PPO. With the prison now safer and a more competent and motivated staff team in place, there is an excellent opportunity to continue to build on this success and make further improvements.
Charlie Taylor
HM Chief Inspector of Prisons
January 2023
The inspectors also provided a brief list of areas which they feel require special attention. Their note says there are 14, but they actually only list 13!
What needs to improve at HMP Hewell
During this inspection we identified 14 key concerns, of which six 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
- Early days in custody arrangements were not good enough. First night risk assessments were not always thorough or complete, and some cells on the early days centre not clean or fully equipped.
- Too little was being done to reduce self-harm levels across the prison. There was no strategy or action plan, limited data analysis and investigation of serious self-harm incidents, and poor oversight of implementation of Prisons and Probation Ombudsman recommendations.
- Waiting times to see a GP or for a mental health assessment were too long.
- Prisoners spent too much time locked in their cells with half the population let out for around two hours a day. There were not enough activity spaces available to meet the needs of the population and prisoners were not always allocated to the relevant purposeful activity.
- There were shortfalls in public protection arrangements. The interdepartmental risk management meeting did not routinely consider all prisoners who presented the greatest risk before their release. There were gaps in arrangements for those subject to public protection monitoring.
Key concerns
- Prisoners on the segregation unit were subject to punitive restrictions and received a limited regime with too little to stimulate or incentivise them.
- Very few prisoners received key work sessions.
- Some prisoners with a disability had very limited access to health care services and the regime because broken lifts had still not been fixed.
- Prisoners did not receive sufficient careers education, information, advice and guidance to enable them to make informed decisions about the careers available to them.
- Prisoners with learning difficulties and disabilities did not consistently receive the support they needed to learn and work effectively.
- There were insufficient accredited qualifications in work areas, and the employability skills that prisoners gained were not recognised.
- Oversight and management of visits was weak. Booking visits was problematic, and enhanced and remand prisoners did not receive their entitlement.
- Support to meet the practical resettlement needs of the large number of prisoners who were on remand was insufficient.
To read the full report got to the Ministry of Justice web site or follow the links below:
This section contains the reports for Hewell from 2009 until present
- Inspection report (1 MB), Report on an unannounced inspection of HMP Hewell by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons (22 November – 9 December 2022)
- HMP Hewell report (PDF) (455.79 kB)Report on a scrutiny visit to HMP Hewell by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons 4 and 11 – 12 August 2020
- HMP Hewell (962.00 kB), Report on an unannounced inspection of HMP Hewell (3 – 14 June 2019)
- HMP Hewell (919.04 kB), Report on an announced inspection of HMP Hewell (22 August-9 September 2016)
- HMP Hewell, Report on an unannounced inspection of HMP Hewell (7 – 18 July 2014)
- HMP Hewell, Unannounced full follow-up inspection of HMP Hewell (5–9 November 2012)
- HMP Hewell, Announced inspection of HMP Hewell (2-13 November 2009)