'Real progress' made at Wellingborough HMP Five Wells prison inspector finds 'weaknesses', 'serious errors' and 'shortcomings'

HM Chief Inspector of Prisons’ inspection 21-strong team visited the G4S-run prison on May 11 to 21 with the full report published on Monday, August 17.

Highlighting ‘real progress’ in leadership, staff-prisoner relationships, and ‘significantly reduced’ levels of violence between younger prisoners, concerns persist about high levels of self-harm, the lack of spaces in education and work, and insufficient work to prepare men for release.

Health care was an area of particular concern with long waits to see a doctor or dentist – patients with serious mental illness waited too long for a secure hospital bed, and some faced delays accessing community hospital appointments.

Acknowledging ‘significant challenges’ since opening in 2022, Mr Taylor said: “At this inspection we found a prison that had stabilised and made real progress, with better outcomes in three of our healthy prison tests.

"The director (prison governor) had provided a clear sense of direction and more visible leadership, and his focus on building constructive staff-prisoner relationships was progressing well.

"The prison was calm, there were excellent interactions between officers and prisoners, and a range of imaginative initiatives had helped to reduce violence, particularly among younger men.

“More prisoners were now engaged in purposeful activity, and leaders had taken steps to improve the oversight of education, skills and work. However, there still were not enough activity spaces for the population. There were plenty of enrichment opportunities to help men develop new skills.”

The inspection found that while day-to-day stability had improved, the prison was not delivering sufficiently well on its core purpose of reducing reoffending – the £253m ‘super prison’ was designed for rehabilitation and resettlement. G4S secured a £300 million contract to run the facility prison for its first ten years and prior to opening the private company promised ‘innovative new approaches to rehabilitation’.

Issues of staff relationships with prisoners, assaults on officers and prisoner deaths have been widely reported.

Due to the increasing prison population, ‘overcrowding’ has now begun at Five Wells with cells designed for one prisoner now holding two described as ‘very cramped’.

Mr Tayor said: “Prisoners found it too difficult to complete sentence plan targets, there were not enough places on key offending behaviour programmes, and offender management was hindered by high caseloads which limited meaningful contact.

"Weaknesses in public protection arrangements and serious errors in sentence calculations underlined the extent of these shortcomings in a prison holding a large number of high-risk men.”

A previous inspection in 2024 said ‘repeated changes in leadership, high staff attrition and a largely inexperienced workforce’ had resulted in ‘weak governance’ leading to ‘concerning’ outcomes.

Mr Taylor said: “Other serious concerns from 2024 persisted. Self-harm rates remained high and too little was being done to understand the causes and reduce the number of incidents. The absence of psychological support or counselling meant that too many prisoners continued to struggle with fragile mental health.

"Despite some improvements in leadership and staffing, prisoners still faced unacceptable waits to see a GP or dentist, or to access external hospital appointments.”

Mr Taylor said there were ‘clear strengths on which leaders could build’ citing the ‘modern’ environment, ‘good’ early days provision and ‘excellent’ support for family contact. He added the delivery of an integrated regime where men convicted of sexual offences live alongside others was not without its challenges but was being maintained well by leaders.

He said: “Five Wells has come some way since its turbulent early period. The experienced director and his team have succeeded in stabilising the prison and creating a more positive and ordered environment.

"They now need a sharper focus on reducing self-harm, improving access to health care, and, crucially, strengthening the systems that support progression and resettlement.”

A spokeperson HMP Five Wells spokesperson said: “We are proud of our staff and prisoners who have established a prison that the inspectorate describes as calm and well ordered – and where interactions between the two groups were observed as excellent. “We are also working on the areas that were highlighted for improvement. For example, to further reduce self-harm incidents we will continue to develop both our active listener and peer-to-peer support schemes, and make better use of data to identify root causes.” All HMP Five wells prisoners receive 30 hours of ‘purposeful’ activity a week. For the year ending June 2026, self-harm incidents have more than halved. Accodrding to the inspectors’ survey of prisoners, 63 per cent believe their experiences at Five Wells have made them less likely to offend in the future.

The full report is available at https://hmiprisons.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmipris_reports/hmp-five-wells-3/#1-Introduction

HMP Five Wells factfile

– 1,742 prisoners were held at the time of the inspection. There was operational capacity for 1,769. When first opened it was designed to house 1,680 prisoners

– Around 193 new prisoners a month arrived and an average of 150 a month were released into the community.

– Approximately 57 per cent of the population were serving a sentence for sexual offences.

– 70 per cent of the population were assessed as high risk of serious harm to others.

– 120 were foreign national prisoners.

– 34 per cent of prisoners were from black and minority ethnic backgrounds.

– 1,818 prisoners had been referred for a mental health assessment in the last 12 months.