PHYSICAL restraint was used to control more than 150 mental health patients in Worcestershire in the last year, new figures have revealed.

Mental health charity Mind, which says physical restraint can be humiliating, dangerous and even life-threatening, obtained data from 51 mental health trusts up and down the country as part of a campaign to secure a better deal for vulnerable patients.

Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust’s figures reveal 153 incidents of physical restraint during 2011-12. These were on 69 different patients, with 14 being used to administer medication, six involving police and one resulting in physical injury.

Face-down physical restraint – where a person is pinned face-down to the floor and which Mind says is “frightening, dangerous and has no place in modern society” – was used on one occasion.

The charity’s investigation revealed physical restraint is used far less in Worcestershire than in other parts of the West Midlands.

Worcestershire has the lowest figure for face-down restraint, with the 106 recorded by Black Country Partnership NHS Foundation Trust the highest.

Derek Hammond, clinical lead for adult mental health at Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust, said physical restraint is only ever used when there are no other options.