Earlier this week, the Prison Inspectorate called Britain's prisons "unacceptably violent and dangerous".

In his report, the inspectorate criticised HMP Wandsworth for failings on prison deaths, visits and its ability to deal with foreign national prisoners.

July 21: Prisons are 'unacceptably violent and dangerous' according to latest report from chief inspector

The prison, in Heathfield Road, was subject to an unannounced inspection between the end of February and the beginning of March last year, and since then, a lot has changed.

Ian Bickers, former deputy governor, returned to the prison in the top job, and led the way for the prison to become an early adopter of the autonomy reforms.

HMP Wandsworth is now one of six in the country that is a 'trailblazer' prison, able to set its own internal policies and contracts independently of the Ministry of Justice.

In his response to the annual prison report, Mr Bickers said the reforms meant he had been able to address some issues.

He said: "We have worked hard on providing the best levels of resource we can and have focused on, safety for all, staff and prisoners alike.

"Every death in custody is a tragedy and we have reduced the number of self-inflected deaths from eight to two - a number that is still too high and we continue to focus on this very important issue."

Mr Bickers previously said he felt very personally about deaths in custody and does what he can to prevent them.

June 16: Inside HMP Wandsworth: our reporter's look behind bars at life in Britain's biggest prison

June 14: 'We are responsible for our own destiny': HMP Wandsworth governor talks recruitment and budgets as trailblazer prison is given autonomy

HMP Wandsworth has a constant issue with overcrowding but Mr Bickers said he was unable to control this. 

Staffing has also been a problem for several years, but he hopes autonomy will change that.

He said: "With the reforms we have as being an early adopter site we hope we will be able to readdress some of these reductions.

"My aspiration is to increase the number of front-line staff who will be able to spend more time engaging with prisoners in our care and helping them to rehabilitate.

"We hope to be able to provide the right levels of resource to be able to deal with the numbers of foreign national prisoners we have at Wandsworth.

"We work very closely with the Home Office to return those prisoners to their own counties that are eligible to do so as quickly as possible. We do need to work in partnership with the Home Office and others to provide the appropriate support to these types of prisoners."

The prison had been criticised for failing to allow prisoners out of their cells, with some getting as little as 30 minutes a day.

Mr Bickers said: "This is a big issue for us and we are looking at innovative ways to be able to get men out of their cells for longer periods of time and to engage them in rehabilitative activities.

"One of the key drivers will be the introduction of in-cell technology which means that men will be able to access a full range of services including education, making any time they are locked up more purposeful.

"However, this is a focus for every one of us that works in the prison and is a priority for us. We hope that with the freedoms reform brings, and the resources being placed at the front line, we will see improvements in this area.

"We now provide a predicable regime which provides every man with the opportunity for time in the open air - we strive to make this at least an hour a day and sometimes it's more where time and resources allow.

"Rarely do we now only provide 30 minutes of time in the open air."

One area Mr Bickers accepted needed more work was supervision of offending programmes, which he said still suffered occasionally because of staff shortages.

The visitor booking-system problems have been resolved though, the governor said, and there are more family day commitments and a drive to maintain family contact.