Restrictive Practices in Health Care and Disability Settings: Legal, Policy and Practical Responses

This volume explores different models of regulating the use of restrictive practices in health care and disability settings.

The authors examine the legislation, policies, inspection, enforcement and accreditation of the use of practices such as physical, mechanical and chemical restraint. They also explore the importance of factors such as organisational culture and staff training to the effective implementation of regulatory regimes. In doing so, the collection provides a solid evidence base for both the development and implementation of effective approaches to restrictive practices that focus on their reduction and, ultimately, their elimination across health care sectors. Divided into five parts, the volume covers new ground in multiple respects. First, it addresses the use of restrictive practices across mental health, disability and aged care settings, creating opportunities for new insights and interdisciplinary conversations across traditionally siloed sectors. Second, it includes contributions from research academics, clinicians, regulators and mental health consumers, offering a rich and comprehensive picture of existing regulatory regimes and options for designing and implementing regulatory approaches that address the failings of current systems. Finally, it incorporates comparative perspectives from Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Germany and England.

The book is an invaluable resource for regulators, policymakers, lawyers, clinicians, consumer advocates and academics grappling with the use and regulation of restrictive practices in mental health, disability and aged care contexts.

Bernadette McSherry is the foundation director of the Melbourne Social Equity Institute and an adjunct professor of law at the University of Melbourne. She has degrees in law, arts and psychology, with a PhD from York University, Canada. She is the Immediate past president of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law and was a legal member of the Mental Health Tribunal of Victoria from 2001 to 2018. She has written widely in the fields of mental health law and criminal law and is currently a commissioner of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System and a commissioner with the Victorian Law Reform Commission.

Yvette Maker is a senior research associate in the Melbourne Social Equity Institute at the University of Melbourne. Her work focuses on the disability- and gender-related dimensions of law, policy and practice. She has a special interest in disability human rights law, social security law and policy, and the design and regulation of social care and support systems. She holds bachelor of arts and bachelor of laws (hons) degrees from Murdoch University, and a PhD from the University of Melbourne. Yvette’s sole-authored book, Care and Support Rights After Neoliberalism: Balancing Competing Claims Through Law and Policy, is forthcoming.