Prisoners missing hospital visits and funerals through poor transport – watchdog

Hundreds of prisoners have missed hospital appointments or family funerals due to “failures” in prisoner transport, the prison inspectorate has found.

Interim chief inspector of prisons for Scotland, Stephen Sandham, said the firm responsible for prisoner transport, GEOAmey,  cancelled transportation services at short notice, sometimes daily.

He said the impact on the “health, wellbeing and dignity” of prisoners has been “unacceptable” and said it must never be repeated.

In a report, titled Planned Failure, HM Inspectorate of Prisons for Scotland (HMIPS) said GEOAmey often alerts the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) they will have to cancel services that have already been booked.

Mr Sandham said: “Regrettably (GEOAmey) have frequently, at times daily, had to alert the SPS to their inability to deliver booked escorts on time or at all.

“This has impacted on the health, wellbeing and family relationships of prisoners as well as the justice system.

“Behind every prisoner transport journey is a human story and it is these stories that prompted us to shine a light on these issues.

“This report describes how failures in delivering prisoner transport have had a deep impact on people and services that is unacceptable.”

He said hundreds of prisoners have missed hospital appointments or been denied the opportunity to attend family funerals or have arrived at them late as a result of GEOAmey’s cancellation of services.

Other prisoners, the report said, have missed visits to see terminally ill loved ones, and the failures have also led to NHS resources being wasted, with cancelled hospital appointments and the redeployment of officers onto escort duties.

The report said: “This can affect prison regimes and stifles delivery of critical casework in circumstances where many prisons are already coping with overcrowding.

“The report also highlights the limited use of virtual court technology to reduce the demand for prisoner transport, which often takes the form of long return journeys to appear in court for only a few minutes or, in some cases, not be seen in court at all.

“Optimising digital capacity was a recommendation made by HMIPS as far back as 2012.

“This report goes further suggesting that all partners in the justice system embrace a joint obligation to ensure that every journey is necessary, and as short and efficient as possible.

“This would minimise the risk of cancellations and ensure precious resources are deployed effectively.”

The report found performance “has markedly improved” over 2024 but made 25 recommendations to further improve Scottish prisons.

Key recommendations include improving giving priority to non-court events for prisoners, offering better pay to maintain a stable workforce and improving governance in prisons.

Further recommendations include calling for digitalisation and a more modern approach to the transport system.

The report said: “The SPS and partners must ensure, through the next service tendering exercise and contingency planning, that failure on the scale that has occurred with this contract, with its detrimental impact on the health, wellbeing and dignity of those in its care, is never repeated.”

An SPS spokesperson said: “We welcome the publication of this thematic review, and its recognition of the progress made, throughout this year, in delivering a prisoner transport service which better meets the needs of those in our care, their families, our partners, and Scotland as a whole.

“While the recalibration of our contract with GEOAmey has led to improved staffing and performance we are not complacent and will continue to monitor the contract closely.

“We will carefully consider all the findings and recommendations made by HMIPS and respond in full.”

Justice Secretary Angela Constance said: “Whilst there is clearly still room for improvement, HMIPS highlights the positive strides made by the Scottish Government, the Scottish Prison Service and GEOAmey to improve compliance with the current contract.

“The inspectorate acknowledges that performance has markedly improved throughout 2024.

“This is the result of additional Scottish Government funding to support the Scottish Prison Service and other partners in driving improvement in the GEOAmey contract.

“The improvements have been delivered through increased staff numbers and a significant reduction in the number of failed, cancelled or late journeys by GEOAmey to court and hospitals.

“The Scottish Prison Service is continuing to monitor the performance of the contract carefully to ensure we see a level of service which meets the needs of prisons, prisoners, and the wider justice sector.”

A GEOAmey spokesperson said: “It is important to note that this report focuses on historical issues related to the very challenging post-Covid period between 2022 and 2023, during which our people faced multiple complex issues, all occurring simultaneously: staff shortages; heightened demands of the court recovery programme to deal with the Covid backlog; compounded by the unpredictable demands of partners through an uncapped volume-led contract.

“The contract was recalibrated in December 2023 to include additional funding to be passed directly to our officers to make our package more competitive and since then, we have seen a rise in officer numbers and a marked improvement in performance, and we note that this has been recognised in this latest report.

“However, we take responsibility for our own failings whilst trying to service this contract through the post-Covid period which was a challenge for many organisations.

“GEOAmey delivers services that focus on people, and as stated by us when we appeared before the Public Audit Committee earlier this year, we fully recognise and accept there is a human story behind every failure.

“We again offer our sincere apologies to anyone impacted by the historic challenges we have faced.”