YARL’S Wood immigration detention centre was condemned as a “place of national concern” by Chief Inspector of Prisons Nick Hardwick yesterday in a scathing report on the private jail.

Dozens of pregnant women are incarcerated in the Serco-run facility in Bedfordshire, while some people there have been behind bars for over a year because of “unacceptable” delays in processing their cases.

There are too few staff and too few women among them.

Health services had worsened “severely” since the previous inspection in 2013.

Mr Hardwick demanded “decisive action” to make sure that women are only sent to Yarl’s Wood as “a last resort.”

Almost half of the women imprisoned in there feel “unsafe” because they are kept in the dark about their cases and receive poor healthcare.

Inspectors’ complaints inclu-ded care planning so bad it put women at risk, “chaotic” pharmacy services, surging violence and guards barging into women’s rooms without knocking.