South Gloucestershire prison has highest rate of self-harm in England and Wales

It has been confirmed a prison in the West Country has the highest rate of self-harm of any prison in England and Wales.

HMP Eastwood Park, based in South Gloucestershire, currently holds more than 350 women, who range from those on remand, or serving prison time for a short period, all the way to others, who have been handed indeterminate sentences, or even life behind bars.

They were last inspected by the HM Inspectorate of Prisons back in 2022, when they found levels of safety had declined 'considerably', compared to their 2019 report, whilst there was also a reduction in 'purposeful activity'.

This week's report by HMIP revealed two people had died since their last inspection in October last year, whilst there had been a 128% increase in the rate of self-harm since 2019.

'Significant concerns' had also been raised over the use of physical force to manage women 'who are threatening or actively self-harming', with prison leaders found to have failed when trying to help, support, and guide those inmates with 'very complex needs' who were in crisis.

It was revealed by inspectors that there were 22 recorded instances of women being stripped of all their clothing, so they could be clothed in anti-tear material, which they found to be 'very concerning'.

This all follows a review of the prison's progress, which was carried out just last month, with the Ministry of Justice telling us they are funding an increase in financial support in a bid to improve the safety in women's prisons across the country.

A Prison Service spokesperson said: “We take the safety of women in custody incredibly seriously with £14 million extra investment and this report notes incidents of self-harm at HMP Eastwood Park are coming down.

“Many women in custody suffer from mental health issues which is why we continue to work closely with healthcare partners to increase the support available for those at risk.”

In all, HMIP and Ofsted looked into 10 areas of concerns, and found:

• Good progress: Acute staff shortages often made the delivery of even a very restricted daily regime unreliable, leaving women with far too little time out of cell
• Good progress: Some women were acutely mentally unwell. A small number were living in residential unit 4, an appalling environment that failed to provide therapeutic support for them or the staff working there
• Reasonable progress: There had been two self-inflicted deaths since our last inspection and rates of self-harm were very high and increasing. Many women told us they did not feel well cared for
• Reasonable progress: Leaders had been too slow to reintroduce support to help women maintain relationships with their children, families and significant others
• No meaningful progress: Patients requiring a transfer to specialist mental health inpatient services waited far too long for a bed
• No meaningful progress: Remanded women had very little support to help them manage important resettlement issues on arrival at the prison
• Insufficient progress: The number of times force had been used against women had increased significantly and we were not confident it was always used as a last resort
• Insufficient progress: What progress had leaders and managers made in providing enough activity spaces and a broad and well-planned curriculum in education, skills and work which met individual needs and developed knowledge, skills and behaviour to help women on release?
• Insufficient progress: What progress had leaders and managers made in ensuring women gained appropriate accredited qualifications in education, work and skills?
• Insufficient progress: What progress had leaders and managers made in ensuring that the available English and mathematics spaces were used effectively to meet the needs of the prison population and led to women achieving their qualifications in these subjects, particularly in level 1 mathematics?

It's been revealed to us that a dedicated Safety Taskforce Group has been set up at HMP Eastwood Park in a bid to improve the outcomes of women in the care of the prison, whilst the Ministry of Justice are also investing £625,000 a year in Samaritans funding, so listeners can be provided for prisoners in crisis.

You can read the full report here.

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