The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman

17/07/2026

📢 Investigation update: restraints on pregnant women in prison

Our investigation into the use of handcuffs and other restraints on pregnant women in prison is ongoing.

Our online contact form is open, and we are encouraging women with relevant experiences to get in touch.

The experiences shared with us will help shape meaningful recommendations in our final report and could contribute to improvements for women in the future.

If you have relevant experience, or know someone who does, please take a look at our online form. We'd also be grateful if you could share this post with your networks to help us reach as many women as possible.

🔗 Find out more: https://ppo.gov.uk/special-investigation-the-restraint-of-pregnant-women-during-pregnancy-related-hospital-es**rts/

10/07/2026

Prisons and Probation Ombudsman Adrian Usher published his 2025 to 2026 Annual Report yesterday, highlighting the devastating impact of drugs in prison.

Drug-related deaths make up almost a quarter of all deaths we investigate, and they accounted for 13% of deaths in prison we investigated this year. Concerningly, other non-natural deaths, which we tend to classify as drug-related, made up 54% of post-release deaths we investigated. It is clear more work needs to be done by HM Prison and Probation Service to combat both the supply and demand of drugs.

The number of deaths in custody remains high: we started 455 fatal incident investigations this year. The rate of self-inflicted deaths also remained deeply concerning throughout this financial year as we started investigations into 84 of these deaths. Our research published this year revealed that Long-Term High Security Estate and reception prisons present the highest level of self-inflicted deaths. A prisoner will take their own life approximately every five days in England and Wales – the risk is clearly not evenly spread.

Alongside our core investigative work, we delivered a report on abuse at Medomsley Detention Centre. We also strengthened national guidance on prisoner safety checks and expanded the IPCI Ambassadors scheme to 62 prisons.

Click the link to read the full report: https://ppo.gov.uk/corporate_document/annual-report-2025-to-2026/

09/07/2026

Today Prisons and Probation Ombudsman Adrian Usher published his third Annual Report, setting out the progress we made in improving safety and fairness across prison, probation and immigration detention.

In the report, Adrian shared his most serious concern that impacts across service delivery in prisons and probation – the lack of independent oversight of prison staff conduct, as he calls for the creation of an independent body to strengthen accountability.

Demand for our investigative services remained high this year as we received 5,226 complaints, 5,022 of which were from prisoners. Property remained the most common complaint category we completed this year (34%), and we are working with HMPPS on a pilot with 10 prisons to explore a more efficient way of addressing property complaints.

We also pushed back 95 complaints received to the relevant establishment to reconsider this year as we assessed there had been an insufficient attempt by them to resolve the matter.

Full details of our complaint investigations in 2025 to 2026 can be found from page 18 in the report. Click the link to read more: https://ppo.gov.uk/news/adrian-usher-calls-for-creation-of-independent-body-to-scrutinise-prison-staff-conduct-in-new-report/

01/07/2026

The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman has published our Race Action Plan for 2026 to 2027 today.

Ombudsman Adrian Usher shares his continued commitment to address racism in our investigations, including building on the work that our investigators did last year in partnership with the Independent Office for Police Conduct to consider racism in our investigations.

The plan also confirms that we will analyse our data further to enable us to highlight trends in relation to ethnicity.

Click the link for more information:

We investigate deaths in custody, and complaints from people who are in custody or under community supervision.

01/06/2026

From today, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman will name children in our fatal incident reports and on our website, aligning our approach with our existing practice of naming adults whose deaths we investigate.

22/05/2026

Investigation update 📢: We have extended the deadline to 5 August 2026 for women in prison who were restrained while pregnant to contact us, to ensure more women have the opportunity to share their experiences.

If you have a family member or a friend in prison that was restrained while pregnant on a hospital visit, they can contact us by completing our form that is available in prisons. They can post it to us free of charge and can get a copy from the Business Hub Manager.

If you were in prison and restrained during a pregnancy-related hospital es**rt, you can complete our online form linked here: https://ppo.gov.uk/contact-us/

Please do consider sharing your experiences with us.

We investigate deaths in custody, and complaints from people who are in custody or under community supervision.

06/05/2026

Our latest learning lessons bulletin highlights that reception prisons present a high-risk environment for self-inflicted deaths. Reception prisons have one of the highest rates of self-inflicted deaths of all prison functions so we decided to look into this further to identify what might be contributing to this.

Our bulletin summarises learning from 170 investigations into self-inflicted deaths in reception prisons that occurred over a five-year period. 11% of our sample took their life within the first 48 hours of entering reception prison. 36% of our sample took their life after spending three months in a reception prison.

The bulletin highlights the importance of early days in reception prisons and challenges beyond early days. It is our hope that Governors and Heads of Healthcare work together to reduce these stark numbers and ensure their staff are equipped with accredited and regular training to properly identify and manage this vulnerable group of prisoners at risk of su***de.

Read more here: https://ppo.gov.uk/news/the-risk-of-reception-prisons/

28/04/2026

Today, Ombudsman Adrian Usher publishes his fourth Business Plan setting out our priorities for the year. It outlines our ambition to deliver high quality investigations and deliver tangible benefits for the safety and confidence of those in custody: https://ppo.gov.uk/corporate_document/business-plan-2026-to-2027/

31/03/2026

Today is the last chance to complete our survey. We’d love to hear your feedback about our work and how we engage with you.

It takes ten minutes, so please take part here:

Please take a few minutes to take our survey.

31/03/2026

In a Learning Lessons Bulletin published today, The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman highlight the risks of segregating prisoners.

In 2015, we published a bulletin on the self-inflicted deaths of prisoners in segregation, and we found many of the same issues 11 years on.

Segregation is an isolating form of custody for prisoners. The Prison Safety Policy Framework makes clear that prisoners managed under su***de and self-harm procedures (ACCT) should only be placed in segregation in exceptional circumstances.

In conducting research for this bulletin, we found out of 14 individuals located in a segregation unit that died between 1 April 2024 and 31 December 2025, 8 of them were on an open ACCT at the time of their death.

Being placed in segregation reduces the protective factors against su***de and self-harm and is likely to heighten the vulnerability of a prisoner on ACCT.

We also found multiple cases where the prison did not consider the prisoner’s physical health properly when deciding whether to segregate them. The prisoner’s initial segregation health screen as referred to in HMPPS’ Segregation Policy predominantly relates to mental health. We found the omission of physical health illogical, so we have recommended that HMPPS amend their guidance to consider this.

Find out more here: https://ppo.gov.uk/news/the-risk-of-placing-prisoners-in-segregation/