Prisons and Probation Ombudsman see self-neglect and adult safeguarding issues in prison deaths
September 14, 2023
In the 2022/23 Annual Report drafted by Kimberley Bingham who was Acting Ombudsman at the time, the PPO share there has been a concerning rise in prison and self-inflicted deaths, with cases that have raised safeguarding issues.
Kimberley Bingham said: “Prisons have a duty to keep prisoners safe and protect them from abuse and neglect”
![Front cover of Annual Report](https://s3-eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/cloud-platform-e218f50a4812967ba1215eaecede923f/uploads/sites/34/2023/09/Pages-from-15.81_PPO_ARA_2022-23_WEB-1-212x300.jpg)
The PPO are concerned about the increase in prison deaths as adult safeguarding issues continue to be seen in our self-inflicted death investigations.
“Prison and healthcare staff have a responsibility to report safeguarding concerns and more must be done to embed a robust, multi-disciplinary person-centred approach”, said Kimberley.
In the year covered by this report, we received 4,472 complaints and we started 404 fatal incident investigations, a 23% increase from the previous year.
Key findings:
- The PPO are concerned there were 34 more prison deaths than last year. We also started investigations into 5 more self-inflicted deaths than last year.
- We investigated a number of fatal incidents during the year that involved prisoner’s self-neglect. We recommended that HMPPS should develop a self-neglect strategy and guidance to be used in the prison environment.
- Our investigations found that some prisons have been unable to introduce key work fully, leading to a lack of meaningful contact between staff and prisoners.
- We regularly investigate complaints about the impact of prison security measures on day-to-day life for prisoners. A balance needs to be struck between implementing security policies that reduce risk and maintain safety, and ensuring that the impact on individuals is fair and proportionate.