Independent Monitoring Boards annual report

North Sea Camp

Report year 2022 Published 7 Aug 2022 Type Prison, category D Population 264 Responsible body HMP North Sea Camp 7 recommendations

Original IMB report page ↗ Ministerial response, 7 Dec 2022 ↗ imb.org.uk ↗

The summary and positive findings below were written from the report by an AI model. The Board's own wording is in the report linked above.

Summary

Summary written by this site (AI-generated)

HMP North Sea Camp is an open Category D male resettlement prison. This report covers the period from March 2021 to February 2022, during which the prison managed a return to a more normal regime following Covid-19 restrictions, demonstrating strong rehabilitative efforts and good healthcare provision. Key concerns persist regarding end-of-life care, inadequate accommodation and accessibility for disabled prisoners, delays in offender management, and issues with contracted maintenance and property transfers.

Positive findings

Summary written by this site (AI-generated)

The rehabilitative culture at HMP North Sea Camp continues to work well, fostering a polite and calm atmosphere with very few violent incidents. Staff are commended for creating an inclusive environment for all prisoners, and the recycling activity provides valuable employment opportunities and qualifications for release. Healthcare provision remains good, with resumed clinics and acceptable waiting lists. The Governor and his team are praised for efficiently opening the regime post-pandemic and increasing outside employment. The catering facilities are of a high standard with a 5-star food hygiene rating, and staff-prisoner relationships are generally positive. The Offender Management Unit is now efficient and makes effective use of ROTL to support rehabilitation and family ties.

Recommendations

Recommendation 1Addressed to HMPPS
Recommendation 2Addressed to HMPPS
Recommendation 3Addressed to HMPPS

All 7 recommendations

Key concerns

Key concern 1Healthcare
Key concern 2Estate/Conditions
Key concern 3Estate/Conditions

All 6 key concerns

Recommendations 7 items

Recommendations were extracted from the report by AI, and responses and their status from the ministerial response by AI. Each recommendation shows whether its wording has been checked against the report.

Recommendation 1

Addressee: HMPPS · Topic: Resettlement

Recommendation (the Board's words)

Community offender managers often take a long time to update their part of OASys and complete the paperwork to enable prisoners to sit ROTL boards. This can mean prisoners having to postpone Parole Board hearings as they have not done the required ROTLs and means prisoners may spend more time in prison than strictly necessary. Timescales for return of paperwork would be helpful.

Source text verified

Recommendation 2

Addressee: HMPPS · Topic: Estate

Recommendation (the Board's words)

The quality of some of the accommodation is poor and the space allocated to prisoners sharing rooms is not ideal. It was good to see the two-storey aging accommodation units decommissioned, however the Board is concerned that, as yet, there is no plan to replace them.

Source text verified

Recommendation 3

Addressee: HMPPS · Topic: Equality

Recommendation (the Board's words)

There are some areas of the prison inaccessible to prisoners with physical disabilities, especially those who use wheelchairs. Although improvements have been made, budget needs to be allocated so that all areas are accessible to those who use wheelchairs, especially bariatric wheelchairs.

Source text verified

Recommendation 4

Addressee: HMPPS · Topic: Estate

Recommendation (the Board's words)

Budget needs to be allocated to convert the current dormitories to smaller rooms so that, when HMP North Sea Camp is at full capacity, no prisoners will have to share with more than one other person.

Source text verified

Recommendation 5

Addressee: HMPPS · Topic: Estate

Recommendation (the Board's words)

The IMB is concerned by the time taken to complete routine maintenance jobs, and the issues around the transfer of prisoners’ property. These are issues that are provided by contracted out services and the Board is concerned that contract failures do not result in penalties to encourage compliance.

Source text verified

Recommendation 6

Addressee: Governor / Director · Topic: Equality

Recommendation (the Board's words)

There are some areas of the prison inaccessible to prisoners with physical disabilities, especially those who use wheelchairs.

Source text verified

Recommendation 7

Addressee: Governor / Director · Topic: Resettlement

Recommendation (the Board's words)

To ensure that work continues on the further extension of Jubilee self-catering housing.

Source text verified

Key concerns 6 items

Key concerns were extracted from the report text by an AI model.

Key concern 1

Healthcare

HMP North Sea Camp has, at the time of reporting, an aging population. Inevitably, many of them suffer from a range of medical conditions – some of them very serious. Currently, there is no facility within HMP North Sea Camp where prisoners can be suitably cared for during an end-of-life period; there are no on-site residential healthcare facilities. This means that prisoners who have chronic and other serious health issues stay on the units within the prison, surrounded by the other prisoners and the usual activities of everyday prison life. This has a very upsetting effect on those prisoners living alongside.

Key concern 2

Estate/Conditions

The older accommodation units, Harrison and Llewellin, have been decommissioned and demolition work has commenced, and there is as yet no plan to replace them. The Selby units are due to be returned at the end of the hire period.

Key concern 3

Estate/Conditions

The size of the double rooms in all the main accommodation units are not adequate in that it is often impossible to put a chair or table let alone two of each into a room. The cramped accommodation means that the accommodation listed does not comply with the Prison Service Instruction (PSI) when used by two prisoners.

Key concern 4

Equality/Diversity

6 Prisoners who use wheelchairs can experience difficulties travelling to and getting overnight accommodation at approved premises (APs) when going on resettlement overnight release (ROR), which can delay their ROTL programme and have a significant delaying effect on their sentence plan and Parole Board hearings.

Key concern 5

Resettlement/Release

Community offender managers often take a long time to update their part of OASys and complete the paperwork to enable prisoners to sit ROTL boards. This can mean prisoners having to postpone Parole Board hearings as they have not done the required ROTLs and means prisoners may spend more time in prison than strictly necessary.

Key concern 6

Estate/Conditions

The IMB is concerned by the time taken to complete routine maintenance jobs, and the issues around the transfer of prisoners’ property. These are issues that are provided by contracted out services and the Board is concerned that contract failures do not result in penalties to encourage compliance.

Safety statistics

Incidents during the reporting year.

Indicator	This year	Previous
Deaths in custody	2	not recorded
Self-harm incidents	1	not recorded
ACCT cases opened	2	27
Prisoner assaults	0	not recorded
Assaults on staff	1	not recorded
Use of force	2	not recorded

Population

Population	264
CNA (designed for)	300 (88% occupied)

Applications to the IMB

Category	Current	Previous
Accommodation (including transfers)	45	38
Adjudications	1	1
Disability	0	0
Discrimination	0	0
Early Release (ROTL/HDC)	20	12
Food	0	0
General	131	152
Grand Total	324	280
Health & Social Care	11	10
Legal	0	0
Offender Management	64	22
Property	50	45
Religion	0	0
Safeguarding (adult/child)	1	0
Staff Conduct	0	0
Substance Misuse	0	0
Wellbeing	0	0
Work/Education/Vocational Training	1	0

Report details

Establishment: North Sea Camp
Type: Prison, category D
Report year: 2022
Published: 7 August 2022
Responsible body: HMP North Sea Camp
Recommendations: 7
MoJ rating (2025/26): 4, Outstanding

Service providers

Service	Provider
Drug and alcohol support and counselling	We Are "With You
Education and training	PeoplePlus
Facilities management	Amey
Family services	Lincolnshire Action Trust (LAT)
Healthcare	Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust
Library service	Greenwich Leisure Ltd
Resettlement services	Probation Service
Through the gate (TTG) services	Purple Futures Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC)

Related inspections and investigations

HMIP inspection, 22 May 2023

Unannounced · Safety 4 · Respect 3 · Activity 3 · Release 3

HMIP inspection, 27 Apr 2021

Inspection

Peter Dodd

PPO fatal incident · Natural causes

Robert Sneddon

PPO fatal incident · Natural causes

Judge, Darryl

PPO fatal incident · 19 Aug 2020 · Natural causes

Individual at North Sea Camp

PPO fatal incident · 19 Jan 2021 · Natural causes

Individual at North Sea Camp

PPO fatal incident · 17 Apr 2021 · Natural causes

John Stabler

Prevention of future deaths report · 18 Dec 2014 · State Custody related deaths

Other reports for North Sea Camp

2026

Published 29 Sep 2026 · Population 294 · Self-harm 7 · Key concerns recorded

2025

Published 20 Aug 2025 · Population 296 · Self-harm 1 · Key concerns recorded

2024

Published 4 Oct 2024 · Population 224 · Self-harm 2 · Key concerns recorded

2023

Published 13 Sep 2023 · Population 224 · Self-harm 4 · Key concerns recorded

2021

Published 3 Sep 2021 · Population 346 · Self-harm 8 · Key concerns recorded

2020

Published 10 Jul 2020 · Population 412 · Self-harm 22 · Key concerns recorded