Southdown achieves major reduction in restraint use in Learning Disability Services

Posted on 18 June 2025

Keeping clients and staff safe is a priority in our learning disability support services. One of the ways we do this is through training our Support Workers and Service Managers to understand challenging behaviours and create supportive strategies to help enhance a client’s quality of life. 

Over the last three years we have seen a huge reduction in our use of physical restraint and personal safety techniques. This has had a direct impact on the health and wellbeing of our clients.

Impact of Positive Behaviour Support

Our Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) training and expertise has supported this change. The PBS team works with clients and their support teams to improve communication, develop independence skills, teach coping strategies, and reduce the need for restrictions. This adds to a person’s skill set and reduces their need to use challenging behaviour to get their needs met. 

Matt Gough, Southdown’s Chief Operating Officer, says, “I am incredibly proud of the work done to reduce the use of restraints in our Learning Disability Support services. It represents not only recognition of a positive way to manage the impact of past traumas that have been faced by many of our clients, but also a fantastic collaborative effort between our PBS team and our Learning Disability Support colleagues.” 

Making a difference

We talked to Debbie Dacey, PBS Team Leader, to find out more about this incredible achievement:  

“I am so pleased to announce that we have seen a 65% reduction in the prescription of physical restraint techniques and a 73% reduction in the prescription of personal safety techniques. 

I’ve always known we are good at what we do, but now we actually have measurable figures that show it. These reductions are directly impacting our clients’ quality of life. 

Being respectful and mindful of everything we do is so important. PBS runs through the Beacon at every level. Staff are working with clients to create safe environments, build relationships that value choice and individuality, and recognise individual experiences, strengths, and potential. 

Anytime we are moving into someone’s personal space and using restraints, we risk traumatising or retraumatising them by taking them back to an historical traumatic experience.   

There are direct links between physical restraint and trauma and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Therefore, by reducing our use of restraints, clients can experience an improved quality of life and come up with their own strategies for themselves.  

We’re working to people’s strengths and reducing stigma. Rather than saying, “There’s an issue, we need to restrain,” we say, “There’s an issue, what can we teach? What can this client learn? How can we support them in a different way?” 

These reductions reflect our use of other interventions such as designing out the need for physical restraint in our buildings. For example, Support Workers removing themselves from challenging situations such as leaving a room with well designed exits, moving furniture, and moving around spaces differently. 

The statistics also reflect positively on our colleagues noticing when there may be an escalation in challenging behaviour that might lead to conflict, by using strategies that empathise, support, and distract a client. 

Our Learning Disability Support services have been using the Restrictive Intervention Monitoring and Evaluation System (RIMES) database to record instances of challenging behaviour since 2022. Through this, we have been able to monitor our use of physical restraint and personal safety techniques. 

Every client has a support plan which will detail specific techniques that can be used if necessary. If a technique has not been used for three years, it triggers a review meeting with myself and the service manager to decide whether to remove the technique from the support plan altogether. If there are families or advocates involved in the care of a client, they are contacted to ask if they are happy for the technique(s) to be removed. 

Of the 38 clients in our services who have a physical restraint or personal safety technique in their plan, 35 have had at least one technique that hasn’t been used in three years. 

We’re also removing one whole technique from all of Southdown’s support plans. This is a huge achievement. The techniques we have left are about safety – for clients and support workers. They’re not about power and control. 

Everyone working with a client who has a physical restraint technique in their support plan has training every year. This is why it’s so important to attend training so we can work to remove the physical restraints over time. 

Face-to-face PBS training means we’ve been able to stay ahead of the game and comply with standards across the sector. Our PBS training is certified by the British Institute of Learning Disability (BILD) against the RRN (Restraint Reduction Network) standards. They aim for reductions and supervise our training every year. 

I’m so proud of both our staff and our clients with these significant reductions because they are the ones who have made these changes happen. They’ve done brilliantly!” 

Anita Beverton, Head of Learning Disability and Safeguarding Lead, says, “This excellent work, which our services have achieved with the guidance and support of the PBS team, shows such a commitment to the wellbeing and quality of life of the people we support. And it beautifully promotes our values: Brilliant with People and Responsive. We are very proud of this achievement.”