What this is
The Commission’s human rights framework for restraint, published in March 2019. It sets out principles for the lawful use of physical, chemical, mechanical and coercive restrictive interventions, built on Articles 3, 8 and 14 of the European Convention, on torture and inhuman or degrading treatment, on autonomy and integrity, and on non-discrimination, as incorporated by the Human Rights Act 1998.
It applies to anyone performing a public function or providing a public service, state or contractor: teachers, police, prison and immigration officers, NHS and social care staff.
What it records
Restraint is “an act carried out with the purpose of restricting an individual’s movement, liberty and/or freedom to act independently”. It covers chemical, mechanical and physical control, coercion and enforced isolation. It does not require physical force, or resistance by the person restrained.
The central rule: “the key issue is the nature of the act, not how it is described”.
Four things are never lawful: restraint with intent to torture, humiliate, distress or degrade; a method that is inherently inhuman or degrading; physical force as a means of punishment; and restraint that unnecessarily humiliates or subjects a person to serious ill-treatment.
Below that threshold, restraint may be lawful only where a legal power authorises it, the purpose is legitimate and sufficiently weighty, the framework is public and clear, procedural safeguards exist with sanctions for unlawful use, and the means and duration are no more than necessary, with a less intrusive measure considered.
The framework’s own examples: taking away a disabled person’s walking frame so they cannot leave a chair; prescribing high doses of an anti-psychotic with sedative properties solely to control behaviour, for someone who does not have the condition the drug treats.
How to read it
It is a test, not a finding, and it names no service.
Read it before any technique: the definition decides whether the paperwork, the safeguards and the scrutiny apply at all. A colleague who says “that wasn’t restraint, we were guiding him” is answered by the definition, not by an argument about intent. Sedation, time out, segregation, escort and holding all sit inside it.
The may-be-lawful conditions are a list to be satisfied, not a menu. A service that cannot show the legal power, the necessity and the safeguards has not met the test.
The consequence is a records question: a service that logs only physical holds is not recording its restraint.
Where it stops
A framework sets principles, not verdicts. Whether a particular intervention was lawful turns on the facts of that case and the power relied on; this page applies it to none.
It is UK-wide and cuts across sectors, so no single regulator enforces it: the Restraint Reduction Network adopted it as a reference standard, and the Welsh Government cited it in its framework for reducing restrictive practices. Adoption is not enforcement.
It is dated March 2019 and this page does not track later revisions. The Commission’s landing page failed to load when the record was built, so nothing rests on it; the framework PDF was read directly and each page is stamped with that month. Confidence: confirmed.
Sources
- Equality and Human Rights Commission, Human rights framework for restraint: principles for the lawful use of physical, chemical, mechanical and coercive restrictive interventions, March 2019 · https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/human-rights-framework-restraint.pdf
- Equality and Human Rights Commission, Human rights framework for restraint (landing page), March 2019 · https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/human-rights/human-rights-framework-restraint-0
If your service records restraint by technique and not by effect, our restraint reduction training starts with the definition, because it decides what has to be reported.
Reviewed 20 October 2026.