PRISON officers have urged the government to properly fund the  service and its staff as a report revealed that prisoners are being kept in squalid conditions for up to 23 hours a day.

A report by HMP Winchester’s independent monitoring board has found that prisoners are “warehoused” in jail, and are only let out of their cells for 45 minutes every day.

It is the latest jail to face a highly critical report, after reviews of several prisons sparked concerns about a safety crisis in Britain’s justice system.

Under this “restricted regime,” prisoners cannot shower, exercise or make phone calls, while serious staff shortages mean that the use of drugs in the prison has skyrocketed.

This has led to serious illness and overdoses among the 584 prisoners.

The report also labelled the accommodation at the facility as “unacceptable,” with rubbish accumulating outside windows and cleaning facilities often out of use.

The board said that such conditions are unlikely to lead to real rehabilitation and could continue a culture of hopelessness, drug abuse and resistance to prison staff.

The board’s chairman, Angus Somerville, said the jail is “little more than an establishment which fulfils the function of ‘warehousing’ prisoners, but we feel that much of what is wrong with the prison comes down to a lack of funding and resources.”

Prison workers’ union POA national executive committee member Sarah Rigby agreed, saying that staff are performing in “very challenging circumstances” and that the government must improve pay to retain workers in the affluent area of Winchester.