Sodexo

Latest information for families

Removal of Covid-19 restrictions

The past couple of years have been incredibly challenging for everyone, with additional restrictions in place in prisons to minimise the risks posed by Covid-19. While these restrictions have been necessary, we did not want to keep them in place for any longer than necessary. We are please to say that we are now able to remove many of the restrictions that have been in place, with immediate effect. There will be a small number of measures retained to maintain the safety and wellbeing of our staff, prisoners and visitors, and this is likely to vary between different prisons.

Social distancing and face masks are no longer required for social visits. This applies to families, significant others, other visitors, prisoners and staff. While the risks posed by Covid-19 have significantly reduced, in order to help us safeguard the wellbeing of prisoners, staff and other visitors, please do not come to the prison if you are experiencing symptoms or have tested positive.

We will continue to offer Purple Visits to help maintain family contact, which we know has been appreciated by both prisoners and their families.

Thank you for your continued patience and support.

Pre-call announcement update from HMPPS

We have had a lot of questions and complaints about the new message that is played before every phone call prisoners make to their families and loved ones. After listening to these concerns, we are going to make some changes to the system to make it easier to use and understand. When you receive a call from someone in prison you now hear a pre-recorded message which gives you a choice about whether to accept the call or not. The message says:

“This call is from a person currently in a prison in England/Wales. All calls are logged and recorded and may be listened to by a member of Prison staff. If you do not wish to accept this call, please hang up now.”

The length of the message is 12 seconds. If the call is from a prison in Wales, the message will also be repeated in Welsh, meaning the message lasts 28 seconds. You don’t have to do anything to accept the call after the message finishes playing as this will happen automatically.

This change has been made so that we can be confident that you are aware of the interception of calls that HMPPS carry out. It is also necessary by law: HMPPS has a legal obligation to inform all parties of the recording of calls made from prisons, to ensure transparency and compliance with the Investigatory Powers Act 2016, and Prison Rule 35A.

Starting soon, prisoners will hear a new message when they make a call. Instead of “your call is connecting” it will say: “When the person you are calling answers, they will be told that this call may be monitored. You will not be charged whilst the message plays. Please be patient and allow more time to be connected.”

Once the message has finished both you and the person calling you will hear a beep noise, to confirm the message has ended. This change is likely to happen by the end of May.

Prisoners have also told us that calls are sometimes connecting to voicemail without them realising it. We have asked BT to find an answer to this problem, but this will take some time. So for now, we are telling prisoners that if they don’t hear anyone at the other end of the line after the new message finishes playing, they will need to either leave a message on the voicemail or put the phone down as quickly as possible. This is the only way they can avoid being over charged at the moment.