{"id":187954,"date":"2025-12-12T13:05:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T13:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/187954\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T13:05:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T13:05:08","slug":"seclusion-and-restraint-of-patients-in-mental-health-centres-falls-to-all-time-low-watchdog-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/187954\/","title":{"rendered":"Seclusion and restraint of patients in mental health centres falls to all-time low, watchdog says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Practices such seclusion and restraint in mental health centres have fallen to the lowest level since national reporting began.<\/p>\n<p>A report from watchdog, the Mental Health Commission, looked at the use of practices such as seclusion, physical restraint and mechanical restraint across 66 inpatient centres last year.<\/p>\n<p>It found that the total number of restrictive practices fell by 18 per cent on the previous year in 2024. Over a five year period, the total number has reduced by almost half.<\/p>\n<p>Last year however, restrictive practices were still used 2,836 times &#8211; but this represents the lowest use since reporting began in 2008.<\/p>\n<p>Chief Executive of the Mental Health Commission, John Farrelly, said: \u201cFrom 2008 to 2018, episodes of physical restraint and the number of residents that were being physically restrained increased year-on-year.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is, therefore, encouraging to note that our work with service providers over the past number of years has continued to result in substantial reductions in restrictive practices, including seclusion.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The data for 2024 demonstrates that clinicians and services are increasingly embedding therapeutic, rights-based approaches that prioritise dignity, safety and recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Director of Regulation at the Mental Health Commission, Gary Kiernan, said: &#8220;These reductions demonstrate a strong commitment to protecting the human rights of people receiving care and ensuring that coercive interventions are used only as a last resort in strictly controlled circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"not-prose no-underline\" data-action=\"click\" data-category=\"Read more article clicked\" data-label=\"https:\/\/www.breakingnews.ie\/ireland\/almost-one-in-four-employees-in-ireland-took-mental-health-leave-last-year-1791889.html\" data-value=\"1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.breakingnews.ie\/ireland\/almost-one-in-four-employees-in-ireland-took-mental-health-leave-last-year-1791889.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>        <img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/13ebeb9a-ffb2-4600-9fa9-d97cbce8e698-e1695297290187.jpg\" class=\"rounded-sm object-contain bg-transparent z-10 w-full h-full not-prose\" alt=\"Almost One In Four Employees In Ireland Took Mental Health Leave Last Year\" width=\"278\" height=\"156\" \/><\/p>\n<p>        Ireland<\/p>\n<p>Almost one in four employees in Ireland took mental health leave last year<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Mental Health Commission introduced revised Rules and Code of Practice on in January 2023, which reinforce a rights-based approach to care and aim to limit the use of restrictive practices.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on Newstalk, Mr Farrelly said that secluding or restraining people is only done as a last resort:\u00a0&#8220;When someone is very, very, very unwell, they can unfortunately be a risk to themselves. They may be secluded or restrained in law.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I can imagine someone looking at the numbers might think it&#8217;s a lot, but actually internationally, Ireland has improved.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The 50 per cent reduction, the movement to the human rights, the movement to the person-centred approach is really driving the figures down.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Practices such seclusion and restraint in mental health centres have fallen to the lowest level since national reporting&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":187955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[103,61,60,410,411],"class_list":{"0":"post-187954","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}