Decision Report 201204504

Summary

Mr C, who is a prisoner, complained that his family were having trouble booking visits to see him. Visits are arranged by phone, and Mr C felt the system was inadequate. In responding to the complaint, the prison told Mr C that they had recently installed a second phone line to try to improve the system.

As part of our investigation, we asked the prison what action they had taken to monitor the effectiveness of the booking system after installing the new phone line. They said that after receiving a number of complaints about difficulties booking visits, they had installed the second line. Since doing this, they said the number of complaints had reduced. The prison acknowledged that both lines can still be busy at times, especially on Mondays as the lines are closed over the weekend. They explained, however, that when someone gets through they are able to book visits for the week ahead, ie more than one visit can be booked at a time.

From the evidence observed, we were satisfied that the prison had identified a problem with the system and had taken reasonable steps to try to improve it. In the circumstances, we did not uphold the complaint. However, we told Mr C that he could come back to us if his family continued to experience problems after they had had sufficient opportunity to trial the improved system.