Serious problems with drug abuse and violence have been found by government inspectors at a prison near Uttoxeter.

Peter Clarke, HM chief inspector of prisons, also found staff were often having to use force to keep order at HMP Dovegate, on the outskirts of Marchington.

Despite the problems, though, Mr Clarke said bosses had put measures in place to make the category B jail safer.

He said: "Overall we remain positive about Dovegate's future. The prison was well led and staff seemed to be growing in confidence. Meaningful work was being undertaken to address weaknesses and some early successes were evident. We left the prison with a number of recommendations which we trust will assist the process of improvement."

Evidence from an unannounced inspection in May and June 2017 mirrored many findings from a previous inspection in 2015.

In 2015, Dovegate had a relatively-new director trying to get to grips with "a challenging population of experienced and often violent offenders".

At the time, Mr Clarke said: "We expressed some optimism about the potential for progress and our hope that improvement could be achieved.

"Unfortunately, that optimism was misplaced and it would seem the prison has experienced a number of difficult years since."

In 2017, inspectors again found a newly-appointed prison director who "seemed to be getting to grips with the problems the prison faced and improvements were beginning to gain momentum, although it remained early days".

The key concern for inspectors was that the "prison was still not safe enough". Levels of violence had dropped from a peak in 2016 but remained too high, despite some recent improvement over the last year.

About a fifth of assaults were serious and a quarter of prisoners felt unsafe. But inspectors said the prison was putting strategies in place to reduce this problem. They also found there had been one "self-inflicted death" since the last inspection.

Self-harm generally was frequent, but it was a small number of prisoners accounting for over a third of such issues.

The views of prisoners and contraband finds indicated the availability of illicit substances, including brewed alcohol and drugs like "spice", which anecdotal media reports have suggested is extremely dangerous, was "considerable".

Substance misuse interventions to help reduce demand were, in contrast, "excellent".

The use of force was high and often required the use of full restraint, while supervision and staff accountability were deemed weak.

The substantial number of black Muslim prisoners reported far less favourably than white and non-Muslims about their treatment - and there was little consultation with them to identify their concerns or needs, said the report.

Despite the negatives, inspectors found Dovegate to be a "generally respectful prison" with good living conditions for most prisoners.

Most felt respected by staff and many were in full-time work or training and had a "reasonable amount of time" out of their cells.

But inspectors still found more than a quarter of prisoners locked up during the working day.

Michael Spurr, chief executive of HM Prison and Probation Service, said: "This inspection highlights good work being done at Dovegate but raises a number of serious concerns, particularly around safety, which need to be addressed.

"Serco have developed a robust action plan to drive improvement, based on the chief inspector’s recommendations. We will closely monitor progress over the coming months."