What this is
The Restraint Reduction Network Training Standards, published by the Restraint Reduction Network, with the current version, v9, dated October 2023. The first edition was published by BILD Publications as version 1.3 in July 2021.
They are ethical training standards for restraint training, written to protect human rights and to support the elimination of unnecessary restrictive practices.
Certification against the standards is licensed to the Bild Association of Certified Training, known as BildACT [1].
What it records
The standards are set out in four sections.
Section 1 covers pre-delivery processes, Standards 1.1 to 1.8, from training needs analysis to complaints handling. Section 2 covers curriculum content, 2.1 to 2.15, including preventative strategies, non-restrictive and restrictive tertiary strategies, a separate standard on mechanical restraint at 2.8.A, emergency procedures, and the use of data to inform minimisation.
Section 3 covers post-delivery processes, 3.1 to 3.6, including competence assessment and refresher training. Section 4 sets trainer standards, 4.1 to 4.7, including insurance and safety [1].
They require training that promotes person-centred, best-interest and therapeutic approaches, focuses on prevention and de-escalation, and treats the safest and most dignified use of restraint as the minimum rather than the objective.
NHS England’s national clinical director for mental health endorsed the launch, writing that certification would be “a requirement in NHS commissioned and CQC regulated services from April 2020” [2].
How to read it
This is a requirement on training providers. It is not evidence about any restraint incident, and it is not a finding about any service. Nothing in it tells you that a named organisation restrains less often, or that its staff are safer with their hands.
Read it as a specification: what a provider must analyse before delivery, what the curriculum must contain, how competence is assessed and refreshed, and what the trainers must hold. A service buying training can put those questions to a provider directly.
Data is the thread joining the two halves. The pre-delivery section runs from training needs analysis, and the curriculum content carries a standard on using data to inform minimisation. A provider that certifies holds and collects no reduction data has nothing to answer either with. That is the difference between a course that teaches techniques and a course judged on whether restraint falls.
Where it stops
It sets the test, not the result. It reports no incident, no count and no outcome for any service, and it cannot be cited as evidence that certified training works.
Version and text: the record cites v9, dated October 2023. The copy held is the first edition, version 1.3, dated July 2021, and its extracted text stops inside the foreword. The section list and standard numbers here come from that contents page read against the record’s summary, not from the body text.
The endorsement promising a requirement from April 2020 sits against the record’s weaker wording, that CQC and NHS commissioning increasingly expect certified training. Both describe a commissioning expectation, not a statutory duty, and no regulation requires a service to hold a certificate.
Confidence: the page and the v9 PDF are both from the standards body, so the section list is confirmed. The detail under each standard is not, because the text held stops in the foreword.
Sources
[1] Restraint Reduction Network, Training Standards, v9, October 2023 · https://restraintreductionnetwork.org/training-standards/
[2] Restraint Reduction Network, Training Standards v9, PDF, October 2023 · https://restraintreductionnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/RRN_standards_v9_accessible_PDF_updated.pdf
If you are choosing a provider against these standards, our restraint reduction training is designed to be judged on whether restraint falls, not on whether the holds work in the room.
Reviewed 20 October 2026.