Deaths involving the use of physical restraint in acute NHS settings

FOI reference: FOI-2026-3374

You asked

Please provide information already recorded, collated, or reportable by your organisation relating to deaths involving the use of physical restraint in acute NHS settings from 1 January 2000 to the present.

For the purposes of this request, "restraint" refers to physical or mechanical restraint used by staff and recorded as relevant in incident reporting, investigation, or governance processes.

This request is limited as follows:

1. Please confirm whether your organisation holds any recorded cases during this period where restraint was identified as:
   • A cause of death, or
   • A contributory factor, or
   • A significant element of the incident preceding death.
2. If such cases are recorded, please provide summary-level information only, such as:
   • Total number of recorded deaths involving restraint
   • Years in which these deaths occurred
   • The type of acute setting (e.g. emergency department, acute ward)
3. Please indicate whether any of these deaths resulted in:
   • A Serious Incident (SI) investigation
   • A Patient Safety Incident Investigation
   • A Coroner's Prevention of Future Death (PFD) report
4. Where readily available and without exceeding cost limits, please provide:
   • Publicly accessible references or links to PFD reports or published investigation summaries where restraint is explicitly mentioned.

We said

Thank you for your request.  

We are responsible for the production of mortality statistics for England and Wales. National Records Scotland (NRS) and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) are responsible for statistics pertaining to Scotland and Northern Ireland. They can be contacted at foi@nrscotland.gov.uk and info@nisra.gov.uk respectively.

We do not hold information pertaining to deaths where use of physical restraint was mentioned on the death certificate, as this would require analysis to be completed using primary care data, which we do not have access to ONS. Primary care data is held by NHS England (NHSE) or Care Quality Commission (CQC) who may be able to assist further.

CQC have published a report Restraint, segregation and seclusion review: Progress report (December 2021) addressing numbers of restraint usage in NHS settings. Furthermore NHSE's Data Access Request Service (DARS) may be able to provide the data you require. 

You can contact NHS England via email at england.contactus@nhs.net and CQC at performance@cqc.org.uk.