NPM Bulletin – April/May 2025
Welcome
Welcome to this double-edition of the NPM bulletin. As I write this I am in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, where I am working with their NPM to help strengthen human rights protections in the country and learn more about their approach to preventive scrutiny. It has been a fascinating visit so far – and I will be keen to discuss it with you all on my return. The visit has been conducted in partnership with the UN OHCHR and funded by the EU in Kyrgyzstan. I was also pleased to travel to Northern Ireland this month to attend a joint RQIA and RPsych event discussing the role of the NPM and collaborative working with clinicians.
In late March, we welcomed Sarah Rennie to the team as our Support Officer, as well as two interns who will be conducting research projects this summer to support the NPM mandate. Eline De Sagher will be examining the suitability of the prison estate for women prisoners, while Mia Zitzlaff will be working on a project related to environmental conditions in detention. I am so pleased that we have such a strong team in place and extend the warmest of welcomes to Sarah, Eline and Mia.
It was such a delight to welcome over 50 delegates to our NPM Annual Conference –on home turf in glorious sunshine! – where we presented the new 2025-26 Business Plan and launched the NPM Recommendations Database, which met with a very positive response. I also reported on our achievements from the 23-25 BP, the successes of which are extensive and I am very proud of our joint work. We’ve hit the ground running with the new Business Plan, and look forward to working with you all to continue our efforts to prevent torture and ill-treatment in all of its forms.
Sarah has been working hard to populate the database with recommendations from all 21 NPM constituent bodies, and our team has been pleased to meet with several interested NPM bodies to share more about the database and its development. Stay tuned for news on the public launch of this resource!
Jane has been working on several projects, including coordinating a new research project with the Northern Ireland Subgroup on personality disorders in custody. She has also been developing a scoping paper for upcoming work on deprivation of liberty in health and social care settings – which will develop into a thematic piece of work conceived in the new BP. She also joined the incoming Chief Inspector of Mental Health to discuss the role of the NPM with CQC colleagues as part of CQC’s Equity & Rights week.
Chelsea is delivering key pieces of work in Scotland, including analysis of trends in deaths in prison custody in Scotland, drafting a submission for the Scottish Independent Review of Sentencing and Penal Policy, and working with parliamentarians with regards to a human rights-based approach to an upcoming inquiry on substance misuse in prisons.
As always, we encourage you to share this bulletin with your staff and volunteers so they can stay up to date with the latest NPM news. If you have received this bulletin as a forwarded email and would like to subscribe, please reply to this message.
With best wishes,
Sam Gluckstein, Head of UK NPM
Sam meeting with the Kyrgyzstan NPM and delegates from the UN
National Subgroups
The NPM Scotland Subgroup has been busy engaging with several issues in Scotland, including a working group advising on the creation of a National Oversight Mechanism to provide independent oversight of deaths in custody, making a submission to the Independent Review of sentencing and penal policy, and developing a human rights briefing for the Criminal Justice Committee’s Inquiry into the harm caused by substance misuse in Scottish Prisons. The subgroup will hold its next meeting on 29 May in Edinburgh, where it will finalise its workplan for the coming year.
The NPM Northern Ireland Subgroup will next meet online on 10 June. Since the last meeting in March, a working group has formed and is planning original research on experiences of personality disorder in prison, one of the Subgroup’s key issues. This work will produce an original publication to be launched at the Subgroup’s awareness raining event this October. In May, Sam and Sarah joined the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Northern Ireland to share the work of the NPM and present the forthcoming NPM recommendations database.
Sarah presenting the new Recommendations Database at the RQIA conference
News: Independent Sentencing Review publication
The Ministry of Justice has published its Sentencing Review, Chaired by David Gauke, on Thursday 22 May. It sets out proposals for community sentences and shorter custodial sentences to reduce the prison population in England and Wales by about 9,800 people. We have now published our submission to the review, which raised five key considerations and encouraged the panel to consider how sentencing policy affects the physical conditions of prisons, the capacity to deliver a rehabilitative regime, and obligations to uphold human dignity in prisons.
NPM Chair Sherry Ralph commented,
The prison population is too high, and the state is unable to fulfil its obligations to maintain human rights with the population as it stands. We will take time to digest the recommendations in the Gauke review and consider the arguments made in our submission, which encouraged bold action to an entrenched issue against the recommendations made.
You can find Sherry’s comments on the Review’s publication, and the NPM submission, here: Independent Sentencing Review published.
Blog: Looking back at the UK NPM Conference 2025
This month’s blog details the 2025 UK NPM Annual Conference, which brought us together under the Scottish sunshine in Edinburgh. Key themes included the power of collaborative working, holistic approaches to detention and strategies for drafting impactful recommendations. We are grateful to all the exceptional speakers and panellists, for their valuable insights.
Learn more about the conference, and browse the pictures, on the NPM Conference 2025 Blog.
We were pleased to welcome more than 50 delegates from across the UK NPM to this year’s annual conference in Edinburgh
Spotlight reports from NPM bodies
Healthcare Inspectorate Wales – Better Together: Sharing Insight to Improve Healthcare in Wales
Healthcare Inspectorate Wales’ (HIW) recent report, Better Together, shares key findings from their inspections and assurance work to drive healthcare improvement. The insights in the reports aim to support healthcare providers to enhance services and support better outcomes for people across Wales. Collaboration and shared learning are key to strengthening healthcare systems. Read more:
Read the full resource: Learning and Insight
HM Inspectorate of Prisons – Easier said than done: resolving prisoner requests
This key findings paper explores the effectiveness of prisoner request application systems across the prison estate, finding that many prisoners continue to feel frustration at the failure of staff to deal reliably with even their most basic requests, leading to increased violence in prisons.
Read the full report: Easier said than done: resolving prisoner requests
Latest news from NPM bodies
- People news:
- Dr Arun Chopra has been appointed as CQC’s first Chief Inspector of Mental Health.
- CJI hosted HMIP’s Children and Young Adults Inspection Team for a visit in March, where inspectors visited Woodlands Youth Justice Centre and Lakewood Regional Secure Care Centre.
- Chief Inspector Jacqui Durkin and Inspector Rachel Lindsay visited Ulster University’s Magee campus to talk to criminology students about our work, including CJI’s role in the NPM.
Rachel Lindsay and Jacqui Durkin of CJI at Ulster University
CJI with the HMIP Children and Young Adults Inspection Team
- CQC’s Patient Experience Library has published a new report: Responding to challenge report and red flags tracker. CQC also welcomed the start of the independent commission on adult social care.
- HIW has recently launched a Learning and Insight area on its website, entitled Better Together: Sharing Insight to Improve Healthcare in Wales.
- HIW has also published its latest insight bulletin, sharing key findings and themes to help healthcare services reflect, improve, and collaborate for better mental health care. For regular updates from HIW, join the mailing list.
- HMICFRS published its Criminal Justice Joint Inspection plan 2025–27.
- HMIP has published its Business Plan 2025-26, a thematic report, Easier said than done: resolving prisoner requests, and several inspection reports.
- HMIPS published its inspection report on HMP Barlinnie, Scotland’s largest prison, raising concerns about the safety of the Victorian infrastructure, state of repair in the National Top End, and prisoner claims of abuse, bullying, threats and assault by staff, exacerbated by the fact that the prison is consistently overcrowded to an unacceptable level.
- ICVA has introduced a new weekly post, ICV Impact, highlighting real examples of how ICV visits have had a positive impact on detainee care, wellbeing, and dignity in police custody.
- IMB has published several annual monitoring reports for 2024-24, highlighting that prisoners with disabilities are struggling to access basic necessities at HMP High Down and raising concerns at HMP Durham around health, mental health and record keeping
- MWCS has opened a register of interest for those who would like to be involved in the development of their next strategic plan. They have also posted a new podcast, No such thing as an AWI (Adult With Incapacity) and a new e-learning module on the Adults With Incapacity Act (Scotland) 2000.
- MWCS has also published inspection reports for Rohallion Clinic, Ythan and Spey Wards (2 April 2024, announced), HMP YOI Polmont (27 August 2024, announced)
- Ofsted has published inspection reports for Marydale Lodge, Aycliffe and Oakhill secure training centre. They have also published a revised Secure training centres joint inspection framework and a report on the related consultation, Rebalancing the secure training centres inspection framework.
- SHRC gave evidence to Parliament on its report into human rights of disabled people, and published a response to the UK Supreme Court’s ruling on the case, For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers.
If we missed anything, or if you have a report, blog post or news story you would like to share in the next bulletin, please send us an email.
Upcoming events and activities
29 May 2025: NPM Scotland Subgroup Q2 meeting, Edinburgh
10 June 2025: NPM Northern Ireland Subgroup Q2 meeting, Online
External resources of interest
We are pleased to share several external resources of interest this month. Thank you to ICVA and HMIPS for sharing many of the below resources:
- ADHD in Custody: A Guide to Police Custody for ADHDers (The ADHD Alliance and Neurodiversikey)
- Learning the Lessons – Issue 45: Violence Against Women and Girls (UK Government; contains potentially distressing content)
- Deaths in Prison: A Guide for Detention Monitors (Prison Reform International)
- Deaths in Prison Custody Statistical Review 2012-13 to 2022-23 (Scottish Government)
- UpSide, a new throughcare programme in Scotland, was launched to provide people in short-term custody or remand with the practical and emotional support they need to transition to community life.
Thank you for reading!
This bulletin is compiled each month by the NPM Central Team. If you have any news you would like to share, please let us know.
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