Recommendation 1
What improvements is the Minister planning to support prisoners without a licence requirement, particularly in relation to accommodation and access to services, given the heightened risk of reoffending shortly after release?
Source · IMB Annual Report
Five Wells
AI-generated report summary HMP Five Wells, a Category C prison, saw a population of 1,757 against an operational capacity of 1,769 by March 2026. The year brought improved staff-prisoner relationships, stable regime delivery, and significant reductions in self-harm, violence, and use of force incidents. However, concerns persist regarding overcrowding, limited purposeful activity, staffing shortfalls (especially for education and workshops), and persistent issues in healthcare access, IT systems, and resettlement outcomes, particularly for employment and accommodation post-release.
Year: 2026
Published: 9 Sep 2026
Type: Prison · Cat C
Population: 1,757
Recommendations: 9
Key concerns
Positive findings
Safety statistics
| Indicator | This year | Previous |
|---|---|---|
| Deaths in custody | 4 | — |
| Self-harm incidents | 1,603 | 2,326 |
| Prisoner assaults | 297 | 586 |
| Use of force | 772 | — |
Positive findings
AI-generated summaryThe prison has benefitted from stable leadership during the year, improving communications, staff and prisoner relationships, and staffing levels. A stable ‘green’ regime has operated throughout the year with minimum disruption. Staff recruitment and retention have improved, leading to a more experienced prison officer population. The Board observed good progress in many areas, including a reduction in substance misuse incidents, self-harm (down significantly to 1,603 incidents), use of force (down 30%), and violent behaviour (down 49% to 297 incidents). Accommodation standards remain good, and support systems for neurodivergent prisoners have greatly improved. Education outcomes and library participation have seen positive trends.
Key concerns
The operational capacity of the prison has been increased, leading to single cells housing two prisoners and impacting purposeful activity, with the Board remaining concerned about two prisoners sharing cells designed for one.
Source wording under review
Shortage of suitable space for delivering courses and initiatives, particularly in key areas such as neurodiversity and mental health support, affecting the prison’s ability to deliver the full range of activities and programmes originally intended due to building design issues.
Inconsistencies in staff implementing the regime, including inconsistent or poor-quality searching, enforcement of the incentives scheme, and servery oversight.
Delays in vetting new recruits for education and workshops, affecting available places and training with external accreditation, and ongoing vacancies for key roles such as pharmacy, GP, psychologist, and paramedic staff.
Source wording under review
Persistent issues with IT access for healthcare staff (CMS) preventing electronic communication with prisoners and efficient medication management, leading to delays for routine appointments, including up to four weeks for a GP.
Source wording under review
Ongoing investigations into four deaths in custody, with recurring themes identified by the PPO regarding the use of restraints when seriously ill prisoners were transported or treated, and the timeliness of healthcare responses and transfers to hospital.
Source wording under review
The quality of challenge, support and intervention plans (CSIPs), used to manage prisoners with violent tendencies, could be improved by setting appropriate individual targets and using multi-disciplinary team reviews.
Source wording under review
Challenges remain in ensuring the consistent application of good practice in use of force incidents, including the use of handheld cameras during planned incidents and ensuring body worn video cameras (BWVCs) are activated in all incidents.
Limited capacity for the 'Building Choices' programme despite high demand, meaning fewer eligible prisoners can participate, which could have implications for their rehabilitation and future risk of reoffending.
Source wording under review
The number of visitors has continued to decline, with adult visits falling by around 11% and child visits by 40% in the year to March 2026, due to factors such as PCoSO restrictions, distant home locations, and high prisoner turnover.
The Official Prison Visitors service has not been available due to a lack of volunteers, and the Storybook Dads service has not yet been available.
Accommodation on release remains challenging, with approximately 27% of prisoners indicating they would be homeless or in CAS3, and 55% of releases going to regions other than East of England where contracted rehabilitative services for accommodation support were not available.
Source wording under review
A significant factor negatively influencing employability on release is the reluctance by employers to offer a job to a PCoSO, leading to low employment rates of around 7% six weeks after release.
DWP staff and others working in the resettlement hub often reported that they lacked access to suitable private space in which to meet and interview prisoners.
Opportunities to apply for driving licences have not yet been available, despite 26% of prisoners reporting no form of identification in pre-release surveys.
Source wording under review
Issues related to property, which arose during transfer from other prisons, continue to be a significant driver of applications to the IMB, with no effective national process in place to follow up these cases.
Source wording under review
Widely varying standards in the serveries, such as the use of hands to serve food and the wearing of inappropriate clothing.
A small number of prisoners, particularly those being transferred to Category B prisons, remain in the Care and Separation Unit for longer than ideal.
Lack of seating for disabled visitors and occasional unavailability of disabled parking spaces in the visits area, along with the inability to pay for refreshments by card.
Recommendations
Recommendation 2
Given concerns about the reduced availability of approved premises, what assurance can the Minister provide that sufficient accommodation capacity will be available, both locally and nationally, to meet current and future demand?
Recommendation 3
Noting the high demand for Building Choices at Five Wells but the limited numbers of prisoners able to access the programme, what plans does HMPPS have to expand capacity and enable more prisoners to benefit from these courses?
Recommendation 4
How will the Prison Service address the shortage of suitable space for delivering courses and initiatives, particularly in key areas such as neurodiversity and mental health support?
Recommendation 5
How will the prison continue to improve its performance in respect of safety, including addressing issues raised in the external reviews of deaths in custody?
Recommendation 6
How will the prison embed good practice in areas in which concerns have been raised, such as searching, enforcement of the incentives scheme and servery oversight?
Recommendation 7
How will the prison ensure that the qualifications offered at Five Wells provide genuine access to work opportunities on release?
Recommendation 8
How will the prison meet its targets for purposeful activity?
Recommendation 9
What action is being taken to improve the use of technology across the prison, including ensuring that healthcare and other staff have timely access to the systems they need to work effectively and deliver high-quality services?
Applications to the IMB
| Category | Current | Previous |
|---|---|---|
| Accommodation, including laundry, clothing, ablutions | 42 | 37 |
| Canteen, facility list, catalogues | 18 | 40 |
| Discipline, including adjudications, incentives scheme, sanctions | 38 | 54 |
| Equality | 4 | 0 |
| Finance, including pay, private monies, spends | 29 | 39 |
| Food and kitchens | 22 | 35 |
| Health, including physical, mental, social care | 83 | 114 |
| Letters, visits, telephones, public protection, restrictions | 18 | 37 |
| Miscellaneous | 82 | 155 |
| Property during transfer or in another facility | 49 | 55 |
| Property within the establishment | 56 | 79 |
| Purposeful activity, including education, work, training, time out of cell | 40 | 41 |
| Sentence management, including HDC (home detention curfew), ROTL (release on temporary licence), parole, release dates, re-categorisation | 63 | 45 |
| Staff/prisoner concerns, including bullying | 42 | 46 |
| Transfers | 4 | 15 |
Related inspections & investigations
Safety 2
· Respect 2
· Activity 1
· Release 3
Nicholas Lowe · Other non-natural
Anthony Foster · Natural causes
Other reports for Five Wells
Population 1,735
· Self-harm 2,326
· Concerns
Population 1,700
· Concerns
Population 1,200
· Concerns