Ambulances called to Midland prisons 1,400 times in two years

A Freedom of Information request has uncovered the statistics - which equate to ambulance staff being called out twice a day across Featherstone, Oakwood, Stafford, Swinfen Hall and Winson Green prisons.

Over 2015 and 2016, the most frequently visited prison was HMP Oakwood, followed by HMP Featherstone. Both sit close to the Shropshire border, near the M54, and serve Shropshire.

Third was Birmingham's Winson Green, the scene of a huge riot last Friday which saw dozens of ambulances called out as prisoners took over four wings.

At each prison bar Swinfen Hall, the number of call-outs increased in 2016 from 2015, with HMP Oakwood seeing the biggest rise, from 216 to 279. Details were not available for Shropshire's Stoke Heath Prison.

West Midlands Ambulance Service could not comment on why there had been such an increase in calls but spokesman Clare Brown said: "We treat every call as a call, we get around 3,000 a day, whether it's from a prison or anywhere else.

"We have to treat every single one the same."

Across the whole area the West Midlands Ambulance Service covers, there were 2,489 call outs over the two year period.

The most common reason for call outs was chest pain, followed by 'traumatic specific injuries', with one call out to Swinfen Hall for a 'stab/gunshot wound'.

The statistics do not reveal how many call outs related to prisoners or staff, or how many of the call-out were related to violent incidents.

The figures come after the Express & Star revealed that jails have been forced to deal with a rise in violence over the past 12 months, as well as the recent outbreak of violence at Winson Green, which was called the worst prison riot since Strangeways in 1990 by experts.

One inmate was reportedly seriously injured as prisoners broke free, smashing their way through the Victorian buildings, wrecking offices and lighting fires.

The riot prompted Walsall North MP David Winnick to criticise the prison service and claim it was 'in a state of crisis'.

Mr Winnick told Secretary of State for Justice Liz Truss that she was 'not willing to admit' that the situation in prisons has reached crisis point and G4S was 'no longer needed'.

According to Ministry of Justice figures published earlier this month, Oakwood is 16 per cent overcrowded putting it among the worst in the country.

The prison, which opened in April 2012, has a certified normal accommodation of 1,605, but had a population of 1,863 at the beginning of the month.

Oakwood's population figures rank it as the 34th worst in the country for overcrowding.

However, in an interview with the Express & Star last week, Jerry Petherick - managing director of custodial and detention service at G4S which manages the prison - said: "There is no particular intelligence around the possibility of riots taking place at Oakwood.

"I spoke to Oakwood very recently to check how things were and it was a positive response that I got.

"Oakwood is a very good prison and they have done an outstanding job there which I am very pleased with."

Meanwhile Prison Officers Association (POA) chairman Mike Rolfe this week warned of 'dire chaos' if inmates conspired to riot in multiple prisons at the same time.

Mr Rolfe told a news broadcast: "The worst case scenario is we fall into real heavy rioting around the estate.

"If it was to go off at more than one jail at the same time, that would be very difficult to manage.

"So, prisoners communicating via mobile phone, organising amongst themselves to create havoc in a few jails at once, could really see the system in dire chaos."

Justice Secretary Liz Truss announced last week that Sarah Payne, adviser to the independent chief inspector of probation and former director of the Welsh prison service, would lead an investigation into the Birmingham riot.

Staff at HMP Oakwood and HMP Featherstone were told to be extra vigilant following the trouble at HMP Birmingham, which saw prisoners smashing their way through the Victorian buildings, wrecking offices and lighting fires on Friday.

Thousands of locks now need replacing costing around £750,000.