Wormwood Scrubs Prison: Prison Officers

(asked on 11th January 2021) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prison officers are employed at HMP Wormwood Scrubs; how many are absent on grounds of sickness; and how many are absent as a result of having to self-isolate or having tested positive for covid-19 as of 11 January 2021.


Answered by
Lucy Frazer Portrait
Lucy Frazer
Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
This question was answered on 19th January 2021

Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) has been working closely with the Department of Health and Social Care, the NHS, and health authority colleagues in England and Wales for a number of months on providing access to Covid-19 tests in a prison environment. More recently, additional testing capacity has been made available to limit the importation of infection into prisons. This includes the regular testing of staff across all prisons and carrying out testing of all new receptions to stop the virus spreading into and between jails.

The most recently published figures included in the HMPPS workforce quarterly statistics provided data for HMPPS staff in post by establishment, as at 30 September 2020. On that date there were 485 directly employed staff in post, by headcount, at HMP Wormwood Scrubs, 91 of which were off sick for non-COVID reasons. The average non-COVID days lost at the prison were lower for the 12 months ending in September 2020, the most recently published data, compared to the prior period ending in March for 2020.

30 staff were absent from work due to self-isolation or quarantine on official health advice on 30th October. This includes both directly and non-directly employed staff. It does not, however, include staff who were off work due to COVID related sickness, caring responsibilities due to COVID or any other COVID related absences.

The table below shows the most recent verified data for HMP Wormwood Scrubs. HMPPS do not hold complete data for the number of individual staff members or prisoners who have been tested. It should be noted that staff numbers include both those directly and non-directly employed. Where values of two or fewer are present they have been suppressed (~) in order to prevent disclosure of personal information. Although care is taken when processing and analysing the returns, the detail collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale recording system. Much of the data collected during the COVID-19 pandemic has been done at pace, with recording practices evolving as we understand more about the requirements and conditions we are facing. In order to present the timeliest information, the data presented has not been subjected to the usual standard of quality assurance associated with official statistics.

May 20

Jun 20

Jul 20

Aug 20

Sep 20

Oct 20

Staff testing positive

~

0

~

~

0

19

Jul 20

Aug 20

Sep 20

Oct 20

Nov 20

Dec 20

Prisoners testing positive

0

0

0

55

7

6

Reticulating Splines