RISLEY Prison has been praised by inspectors - nine months after a damning report unveiled serious concerns.

Five areas were highlights as 'key concerns' at the report in April with 'decrepit showers', poor dental facilities, little support for long term weak and high levels of safe harm.

Ofsted also reported serious concerns with the amount of education rehabilitation available for prisoners.

Inspectors returned to the jail, which houses around 1,000 prisoners, in January and found significant improvement.

A report published today, Monday, said there has been 'substantial improvements' in living conditions.

It added: "Good progress had been made in four of the five priority concerns that we assessed, and reasonable progress in the fifth.

"Ofsted found significant progress in one of their themes and reasonable progress in the other three. No concerns or themes were judged to have shown insufficient or no meaningful progress."

A dental suite has opened while the amount of time prisoners can leave their cell has increased.

Although this remains 'limited' at weekends.

While Ofsted inspectors reporter broader and more meaningful training was in place.

However there was still work to do on tackling self-harm.

The report states: "There were more dedicated safer custody staff and we found much improved use of data to understand the drivers of self-harm. However, rates of self-harm remained stubbornly high and, while the number of Listeners (prisoners trained by the Samaritans to provide confidential emotional support to fellow prisoners) had increased, there were still not enough of them in much of the prison."

There was also praise for the speed of change noted in the report from inspector Charlie Taylor.

It concluded: "It was clear that the governor, prison group director and other senior leaders had not wasted time in acting on our findings after the full inspection, and the result was substantial and measurable progress in every area of concern. Leaders had taken concerted action to secure much-needed investment, and a clear thinking and collaborative leadership approach was evident in the faith that many staff and some prisoners told us they had in the direction that the governor had set for the prison."

A further full investigation will check on progress at a later date.