Altcourse inspection report 2025

Summary

Altcourse, a modern Liverpool reception prison, was opened in 1997. In 2023, Sodexo took over the running of the prison from G4S, a transfer that had been generally handled well. While our score for respect had remained reasonably good, and there had been an improvement in preparation for release to reasonably good, our score for purposeful activity had dropped from reasonably good to poor and safety remained not sufficiently good. The ingress of drugs into the prison fuelled the levels of violence, which had increased considerably in recent years. Random drugs testing showed a positive rate of 34%, one of the highest rates among similar jails. This was of particular concern because the primary health care service was poor.

Inspection ratings

Findings

Priority concerns

Illicit drugs; self-inflicted deaths; self-harm; near-fatal incident investigation; serious and longstanding patient safety risks in health care.

Other key concerns

Insufficient activity spaces in education, skills and work to purposefully occupy the prison population.

Notable positive practice

Communal dining facilities were available on wings at lunch and dinner. Family initiatives included one-to-one and family counselling. All new prisoners received a mental health assessment within 48 hours to identify anxiety or depression.

Progress since the previous inspection

Safety remained not sufficiently good; respect remained reasonably good; purposeful activity declined from reasonably good to poor; preparation for release improved to reasonably good.