HMP Bronzefield

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Reports

• HMIP4 Aug 2025

  Bronzefield in West London is a privately run prison, managed on behalf of the Ministry of Justice by Sodexo. It is the largest women’s prison in England, serving as both a reception and resettlement establishment, with a high-security capability allowing it to hold a small number of restricted status women. At the time of inspection, some 507 prisoners were being held, with a significant proportion on remand or licence recall, and a high turnover reflected in an average length of stay of just 56 days. The population is diverse, with, for example, 110 foreign national women and 37% of the whole population being from black and minority ethnic backgrounds. Overall, this was a positive inspection, with outcomes for women assessed to be reasonably good in three of our healthy prison tests: safety, respect, and preparation for release; but not sufficiently good for purposeful activity. Progress against the recommendations made following the 2022 inspection had been mixed; only one of the six key recommendations had been fully achieved, although seven of the 10 other recommendations had. At this inspection, we identified a further 12 key concerns, six of which we considered priorities, requiring immediate action. Among these, the continued detention of mentally unwell women due to the scarcity of community services continued to be a pressing – and national – issue, although the safer custody team at Bronzefield mitigated the worst impacts by providing commendable support, particularly to those who regularly self-harmed. The prison’s support for women withdrawing from substance misuse was limited and potentially risky, most notably in that some did not receive enough medication to alleviate their withdrawal symptoms on arrival. Leaders were also unable to provide reliable data on the number of women engaged in part- or full-time purposeful activities, or on the total number of spaces in education, skills and work, which limited their ability to know if women’s needs were being met. Many women were released without sustainable housing and some, who presented a high risk of serious harm to others, had been refused places at approved probation hostels despite this being part of their risk management plan. Limitations in the use of data to support initiatives or help sustain improvements proved to be a theme of the inspection. The leadership at Bronzefield had undergone significant change since the last inspection, although the current director, while only recently appointed, had worked at the prison before and had deep knowledge of the institution. She had quickly begun the process of driving forward important improvements and demonstrated a clear grip on priorities and issues facing the prison. Staff spoke positively about her leadership and ambition, though morale among officers remained mixed, with many describing the pressure of working with such a vulnerable client group. The director had sensibly introduced reflective practice sessions and reallocated responsibilities across senior leaders, strengthening oversight in key areas such as safety, health, and well-being. Despite ongoing challenges, Bronzefield demonstrated a clear commitment to improvement and innovation. The dedication of staff, the introduction of new

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• NPM-uk-imb-safety1 Jan 2024

  The prison completed a survey of 66 prisoners in July 2025 (undertaken prior to the deaths in custody referred to in section 4.2), which indicated that although 49% of the prisoners surveyed had felt unsafe at some point, at the time of the survey, 76% felt safe in the prison. In the same survey, 41% indicated that they had experienced bullying from other prisoners and 33% stated that they had experienced bullying from a member of staff. The Board believes that the survey findings are a reasonably fair reflection of what it has heard and observed in the prison. The Board has also spoken to a number of prisoners about their feeling of safety in the prison and has been told that the main reason given for feeling unsafe around other prisoners related to the mental ill-health of other prisoners. Although prisoners do seek help from members of staff or Listeners (prisoners trained by the Samaritans to offer confidential emotional support to other prisoners), most were unaware that they could also approach the safer custody (SC) team. Following concerns raised around the escorting of pregnant prisoners to hospital and the use of handcuffs, a new process and escalation path has been put in place. The default position is for pregnant women not to be handcuffed, except in exceptional circumstances, subject to a risk assessment; any assessment requiring handcuffs must be approved directly by the Director/Deputy Director and the Sodexo Justice operations manager. For non-pregnancy [...]

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• NPM-uk-imb-respect1 Jan 2024

  5.1 Accommodation, clothing, food Accommodation is provided through four residential houseblocks, including a wing dedicated to young adults (YA; 18-25 year olds) and another to incentivised substance- free living, where pregnant prisoners are also accommodated. There are separate units for separation and care (SCU), healthcare (HC) and mothers and babies (MBU). The residential areas are modern, bright and generally well maintained. The Board noted that the temperature in the cells, which is centrally controlled, was either very hot or cold in extreme weather. For example, ventilation during the summer heatwave in June 2025 became particularly acute in many of the cells, as the size of vents was inadequate, especially in double cells. Staff commented that this made it difficult to motivate prisoners to engage with purposeful activities after a poor night’s sleep due to the heat. Whilst fans were generally available during this period, it was reported that these were of little use if fresh air could not enter the cells. While usually clean, the communal showers on three of the houseblocks showed repeated evidence of mould, despite efforts from both prisoners and staff to clean and maintain these. Also, on at least two occasions during the year, a fly infestation was noted in one of the bathrooms. The Board noted continued inconsistency in the provision of appropriate cleaning supplies for the wings, which affected prisoners’ ability to clean communally and within their cells. [...]

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• NPM-uk-imb-progression1 Jan 2024

  The issues (particularly with RRCs) highlighted in Main findings (section 3.1) have impacted education, vocational training and work functions to a material degree. Prisoners have often been late for, or unable to get to, purposeful activities and, on occasion, suffered cancellation of an entire session or sessions due to curtailed regime, lockdowns and roll counts not adding up. The Board has noticed increased management focus on attendance levels at activities. They are reported on daily, and monthly average attendance has been between 70% and 83%, with many non-attendances being due to reasons such as the prisoner attending court. Interruptions once an activity has commenced have also been an issue. Within four days of admission to the prison, every prisoner is assessed for English, Maths, cleaning and food hygiene, plus a ‘rapid screen’ for neurodiversity. Over 50% are assessed to be at Entry Level 2 or 3 for English and Maths (which would ordinarily be attained by 7-11 year olds), while just 15% have the equivalent of a GCSE pass in English and 5% in Maths. The prison has provided data showing that 573 prisoners started 1,445 accredited courses, or modules of a course, from 111 different options. A total of 77% of the courses were completed, with a success rate of 98%. For non-accredited programmes, 1,274 prisoners completed 3,339 courses, also with a success rate of 98%. However, these non-accredited courses include the BICS (cleaning) qualifications and some of the [...]

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• NPM-uk-imb-purposeful-activity1 Jan 2024

  Qualifications available in the education area include City & Guilds (C&G) Functional Skills English and Maths up to Level 2, Gateway ESOL (English for speakers of other languages) Entry Level to Level 1 and Gateway Essential Digital Skills Entry Level 3 and Level 1. Once enrolled in English or Maths, the prisoner must complete the course before moving to a different activity. There are also Level 3 courses in education and training, with advice and guidance available. These courses are all 8- 12 weeks long, which is a problem for Bronzefield prisoners, as the average length of stay is just over 10 weeks. To mitigate the issue of inter-prison transfers impacting courses, they are where possible, broken down into smaller units. This means that when each part is completed the result is logged on the CURIOUS national database and the succeeding parts can then be completed in the next prison. 25 In IT, there are over 40 ‘e-learning’ courses of 45 to 90 minutes in areas such as accident reporting, time management, conflict management, electrical safety and first aid in the workplace, which can be particularly useful for prisoners who are not in the prison for long. When completed, these results are also logged on CURIOUS. The Board has noted that there are no available ‘life skills’ courses particularly aimed at equipping short sentenced/remand prisoners in such matters as basic finance, cooking/nutrition and the benefits/housing systems. The library has been open throughout the [...]

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• NPM-uk-imb-preparation-for-release1 Jan 2024

  Offender management is carried out by a team of prison offender managers (POMs) employed by Sodexo, with prisoners assessed as ‘high risk’ being managed by POMs from the Probation Service (PS). The prison also provides POM services to remand prisoners. Between 1 August 2024 and 30 April 2025, up to 23 prisoners per month were released on temporary licence (ROTL), with a monthly average of five. The video conferencing centre (VCC) has 15 video rooms that can be used for remote court and parole hearings, as well as for official visits and meetings (including legal and probation visits). Peer worker/prisoner activity co-ordinators are present on all the houseblocks and in the mother and baby unit (MBU). Their role is to organise evening and weekend activities, such as drawing, painting and games, and they have access to a modest budget for materials. In March 2025, the ‘street safe’ workshops, to support women who have been involved in sex work, restarted. The Board has been told that the meeting was attended by the charities, StreetLight UK, RAHAB (restoring all hope and relief), Women in Prison and Advance Minerva, as well as police specialising in sexual violence against women, and a sexual health nurse. It was attended by 10 prisoners who disclosed that they needed support in this area. The Board understands that the intention is to run these groups every two months, with invitations extended to other relevant organisations. Three sessions have been held during the [...]

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• HMIP11 May 2022

  Bronzefield, the largest women’s prison in the country, was badly affected by the death of a baby born to a mother in the prison in 2019. Since that tragedy and after the recent publication of the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman report into the case, there had been impressive action from leaders, particularly the deputy director, to respond to recommendations. This included setting clear standards within the prison and stronger partnership working with local maternity services. At the time of our inspection there were 468 women held on four main house blocks. House block 1, which contained the drug treatment and detoxification wing, was noisy and unsettled, and the women housed there reported twice the levels of intimidation from their peers and abuse from staff than elsewhere in the jail. Sodexo, which ran the prison, was also the education provider. This made for a much stronger connection than we often see, with the head of education sitting on the senior management team. Teachers had stayed on site throughout the pandemic, working on the wings when they were not allowed to open classrooms. Health care services, also run by Sodexo, needed to improve the management of medicines: it was disorganised and understaffed, which meant that some women did not get the right medication on time. Leaders had shown impressive ambition in reopening services and increasing the amount of time women were spending out of their cells, with a recognition of the deleterious effects of protracted lockdowns on the mental health of prisoners. There remained, however, a large proportion of women who did not have jobs or attend education and were locked up for 20 hours a day, with further regime slippage at the weekend often leading to even less time out of cell. The prison had worked hard to care for the many women with serious mental health difficulties. On the health care wing 11 of the 13 women had mental health problems and of those, three had already been assessed as requiring a place in a mental health facility and were waiting for a space. A dedicated team worked very hard to support these women, but they were not able to provide the treatment that they needed. The prison was collecting useful data on the number of women who had come to prison as a ‘place of safety’, either on remand or recall to custody. Many of these women should not have been in prison and were only there because there was insufficient provision in the community. This is a national problem that is worse in the women’s estate and, because of its location, even more pronounced in Bronzefield. Like all prisons that are in or close to London, Bronzefield struggled to recruit and hold on to prison officers. The director was aiming to make the selection process stronger so potential trainees had a better understanding of the job. He was also aiming to create a mentoring system that would offer support to officers in their first or second year in the job. Staff who filled out our survey, particularly those in their first year, were critical of the support they had had so far. The prison needed to dedicate considerable time and resource to improving the officer retention rate. Far too many women left the prison without safe and stable accommodation and this meant that some were reluctant to leave, preferring prison to the uncertainties of freedom. One had even slept in the gatehouse for two nights because she had nowhere else to go. Finding adequate housing and support for the many women with complex needs leaving Bronzefield must be a priority for the mayor of London, probation services and local authorities. Without stable, safe accommodation many women are liable to have mental health relapses, return to substance misuse and become involved in crime on release, creating more victims and, at great cost to the taxpayer, repeating the cycle and undoing the good work of the prison.

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