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A benchmarking report on reducing the use of restrictive practice for in-patients of mental health services in the region has been published by the East Midlands Patient Safety Collaborative as part of Mental Health Awareness Week.
The report looks at the use of restrictive practice by the six largest providers of mental health and learning disability services, which together form the East Midlands Alliance for Mental Health and Learning Disabilities. The Alliance members are Derbyshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust, Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and St Andrew’s Healthcare.
Research also indicated that there is also a variation between groups in the rates of restraint experienced, and it is higher in people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds. There were also concerns that the reduced availability of staff to keep people safe may have increased restrictive practice during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Angela Hillery, CEO of the East Midlands Mental Health Alliance, said:
‘The East Midlands Alliance for Mental Health and Learning Disabilities is committed to collaborative learning to improve quality and patient experience. As part of this shared focus, we agreed to work with the AHSN to share best practice and challenges on the use of restraint and restrictive practice.
The Alliance-level report contains a valuable summary of the issues and best practice identified alongside a set of recommendations to help us minimise restrictive practice and prevent the abuse of restraint. The report is a good example of the added value of our Alliance approach’
Across the six strategies, the report makes recommendations for improvement in the following areas:
The report includes examples of good work in the East Midlands such as body worn cameras, the ‘Talk first’ de-escalation training, and Progression and Management of Violence and Aggression training (PMVA).
Feedback of these areas of work included:
‘The training feels so different, there’s a lot more emphasis on preventing incidents.’
‘I have seen a few occasions where the incident had de-escalated and believe this to have been helped by the camera being turned on.’
The project is part of the national NHS Mental Health National Patient Safety Improvement Programme – launched today, as part of Mental Health Awareness Week – and which is delivered in the East Midlands by the Patient Safety Collaborative. A new Mental Health Patient Safety Network will be the ‘engine room’ for patient safety improvement and will employ a co-design approach, representative of the diversity of the population served, using the following key stages; define, diagnose, plan, test and scale-up.
View a copy of the report.
For more information contact the Patient Safety Collaborative at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..