The Care Quality Commission
  • Prison healthcare

Archived: HMP Nottingham

Perry Road, Sherwood, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, NG5 3AG (0115) 845 4545

Provided and run by:
Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

Important: This service was previously managed by a different provider - see old profile
Important:

We served a warning notice on HMP Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust on 21 March 2025 for failing to meet the regulations at HMP Nottingham. 

All Inspections

During an assessment under our new approach

Date of assessment: 4 June 2025. HMP Nottingham is a category B local prison, which accommodates adult males both those who have been convicted of offences and those who have been placed on remand by the courts. Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust are responsible for the provision of healthcare services. HMP Nottingham is registered with the CQC to provide the regulated activities of, diagnostic and screening, surgical procedures, and the treatment of disease, disorder or injury.

 

At our previous inspection in February 2025, we found 2 breaches of regulations relating to good governance and staffing. We issued a Warning notice under Section 29A of the Health and Social Care Act 2008. The last inspection report can be found here: HMP Nottingham HTML report for assessment AP10757 - Care Quality Commission

 

The purpose of this inspection was to determine if the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations and that people were receiving well-led care and treatment. It was carried out by 3 CQC health and justice inspectors.

 

During this inspection, we looked at 5 quality statements and reviewed the regulatory breaches from the previous inspection. We spoke with health care staff and managers, reviewed systems and procedures, and looked at patient records. We found that the concerns from the last inspection had been addressed, and the provider was compliant with all regulations.

During an assessment under our new approach

Date of assessment: 24 February to 26 February 2025. HMP Nottingham is a category B local prison, which accommodates adult males both those who have been convicted of offences and those who have been placed on remand by the courts. Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust are responsible for the provision of healthcare services. HMP Nottingham is registered with the CQC to provide the regulated activities of, diagnostic and screening, surgical procedures, and the treatment of disease, disorder or injury.

At our previous joint inspection with His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) in May 2024 we found 2 breaches of regulation relating to good governance and staffing. We issued two requirement notices. This report can be found here:https://hmiprisons.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmipris_reports/hmp-nottingham-3

The purpose of this inspection was to determine if the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations and that patients were receiving well-led care and treatment. It was carried out by 1 health and justice inspector and 1 pharmacy inspector both from the CQC, and 1 healthcare inspector from HMIP.

During this inspection, we looked at 5 quality statements and reviewed the breaches of regulation from the previous inspection. We spoke with health care staff and managers, reviewed systems and procedures, and carried out observations. We found that some concerns had been addressed by the provider, but that there continued to be areas where the regulations had not been met. We identified breaches relating to low staffing levels, lack of incident reporting and governance concerns. In instances where CQC have decided to take civil or criminal enforcement action against a provider, we will publish this information on our website after any representations and/ or appeals have been concluded.

17 March 2015

During an inspection looking at part of the service

In September 2014 we found that there were high levels of people failing to attend their appointments which were subsequently impacting on waiting times to see health professionals. Although there was a process whereby a nurse would carry out an assessment before a person was able to see a doctor, there was no system to ensure consistency of decision making. We also found there were staffing vacancies.

During this inspection we saw evidence that the provider had taken action to rectify some of these issues, such as recruiting staff and carrying out an analysis of why people failed to attend their appointments, which had led to actions such as ensuring patients had an appointment slip. Some of the issues were outside of the provider's control, such as prison officers not collecting patients for their appointments and we could see that the provider was discussing these with the prison. However, we still found that patient waiting times were too long, such as to see the GP or for a secondary health screen.

People we spoke with were happy with the care provided. One person told us "It's all been fine, absolutely fine", another stated, "It's alright when you see them" but that it was difficult to get appointments. People told us that staff were 'friendly' and 'approachable'.

Although there were systems in place to ensure that a quality service was being delivered we found that these did not always bring about the desired change and action was slow.

15, 16 September 2014

During a routine inspection

We carried out this inspection in partnership with Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons. During the inspection we spoke with 15 people who had used the healthcare service at HMP Nottingham. We also spoke with staff and the manager as well as a range of documents. We observed the treatment and advice that was offered to people in three different clinics.

We spoke with 15 people who had used the healthcare service and asked if they felt staff treated them with dignity and respect. The people we spoke with told us that they felt staff treated them respectfully. One person said, 'I've had no problems with healthcare staff.' Another person said, 'My experience of healthcare has been good so far.'

We spoke with 15 people who had used the healthcare service and asked if they were satisfied with the care and treatment they had received. People we spoke with were dissatisfied about access to and waiting times for different services. One person said, 'You have to wait ages, the waiting lists are too long.' Another person said, 'I am not happy that I've had to wait so long to see the doctor.'

A range of physical health, mental health and substance misuse services were being provided in the prison. Whilst the waiting time for some clinics was acceptable we saw that there were excessive waits for others. For example, at the time of our inspection there were 203 people waiting to receive their secondary health screen.

We saw that an appropriate procedure was in place to arrange for external hospital appointments. There was an emergency protocol in place with the prison to allow an ambulance into the prison grounds in case of an emergency. This had been recently amended so that prison staff would make a call to the emergency services before the arrival of healthcare staff.

Staff received appropriate support through induction, training, supervision and appraisal.

The provider had appropriate systems in place to monitor the quality of the service being provided, however this did not always result in the required improvements. Complaints were not always responded to appropriately or in a timely manner.