High rates of drug use, violence and self-harm continue to blight HMP Altcourse, the privately-run category B prison in Fazakerley, according to a new report from HM Inspectorate of Prisons.
Inspectors revisited the prison last month after previous inspections found major threats to safety and security. Chief inspector Charlie Taylor said the governor and his senior team had responded positively to previous concerns and invested substantially to combat the problems, but added that "despite the hard work we saw, progress remained uneven".
Drug use and violence persist
In the report published this week, Mr Taylor said: "Drug use remained too high, rates of violence had not reduced and self-harm rates remained among the highest for reception prisons. Work to promote fair treatment remained underdeveloped, too many patients still waited far too long for transfer to mental health hospital and weaknesses in public protection and accommodation outcomes for prisoners going into the community persisted."
Altcourse, which holds almost 1,100 adult men and receives inmates from several courts in Merseyside, Cheshire and Bolton, is the first entry for many into the prison network. Inspectors found illicit substances remained too easily available, and although positive random drug tests had reduced, the rate was "still far too high and higher than all but five other reception prisons". The positive test rate was 31%, with only four suspicion-based tests carried out in the same period.
Investment and self-harm concerns
However, inspectors found significant investment had been made to reduce the supply of drugs, including a £2m programme to improve window security and additional technology such as an improved x-ray body scanner to detect contraband.
Between the 2021 and 2025 inspections, there were six self-inflicted deaths in the prison and a "concerning" rise in the rate of self-harm. Since last year, there had been one self-inflicted death at the prison and a second shortly after a prisoner's release. Rates of self-harm had reduced but remained among the highest for reception prisons, with inspectors noting that leaders had "demonstrated a much better understanding of self-harm than at the inspection, plans to address its underlying causes were less well developed".
Homelessness and improvements
Inspectors also found too many prisoners were still released homeless. At the last inspection, 24% of prisoners had been released homeless, which had marginally cut to 20% at the time of the review.
Despite these issues, the review found a number of improvements. Mr Taylor said: "Leaders had responded positively to many of our findings and had strengthened oversight, governance and the use of data across several areas. Progress was most evident in health care, where substantial investment had improved staffing, governance and access to care. The provision of food had also improved; leaders having acted on prisoner feedback. Ofsted also found reasonable progress across all three education, skills and work themes they had raised."
He added: "Improvement in education, skills and work was clear, and Ofsted found reasonable progress across all three themes it reviewed, including the provision of activity spaces, the allocation of prisoners to activities, and the recognition and recording of skills and qualifications they gained through work."
A spokesperson for HMP Altcourse told the ECHO: "We welcome the chief inspector's latest review and are pleased that the progress being made at HMP Altcourse has been recognised. The inspection judged that the prison had made either good or reasonable progress in a significant number of areas, including healthcare, education and work. Whilst it was assessed that reasonable progress had been made in relation to both violence reduction and tackling illicit drugs, we share the chief inspector's push for even further improvements in these areas."
The spokesperson added: "Altcourse continues to operate amid significant population pressures with a complex, high-turnover prisoner population, but working alongside our partners we remain focused on building on the progress made and addressing all of the areas identified by the Inspectorate."
