Respondents to The Disability Royal Commission’s Restrictive Practices Issues Paper have called for ‘restrictive practices’ to be used against people with disability to be a method of last resort.

According to the survey’s participants, restrictive interventions are being used daily due to operational convenience, inadequate training, cultural lack of awareness and understanding of the rights of people with disability. 

Due to this, respondents said the use of restrictive practices had become normalised as an acceptable way of handling a situation in many settings. 

Recommendations to reduce the use of restrictive practices include, ensuring the use of restrictive practices are supervised by properly trained professionals who are regulated by nationally consistent laws, accreditation and independent monitoring.

Education was also highlighted as a key area to ensure people’s rights are understood in relation to restrictive practices.

Last year the National Disability Insurance Scheme Quality and Safeguards Commission revealed in evidence to the Royal Commission that it had received reports of 302,690 unauthorised uses of restrictive practices for 2019/2020 - 78% of which were reported in just the second half of the year.

Disability Royal Commission: Overview of responses to the Restrictive practices issues paper published today