Many of you will be aware of the recent letter sent out by the RRN, CQC, HEE and Skills for Care, dated the 18th November 2020 and entitled ‘RE Certification of Training in Restrictive Practices’.

A similar letter was also sent out in July 2019, which states:

Also, on the RRN’s website and in the RRN Training Standards booklet it states that:

The word “mandatory” seems to imply that the requirement to comply with these standards is in some way a statutory legal requirement as the Mental Health Units (Use of Force) Act 2018 also seems to get mentioned quite a lot in various correspondence (and I’ll come onto that in a bit).

In fact the Cambridge Dictionary defines ‘mandatory’ as:

“Something that is mandatory must be done, or is demanded by law”. 

And the Oxford English Dictionary defines  ‘mandatory’ as:

However, this is not true. It is not a legal requirement.

I have also received quite a few messages from people who have concerns regarding the letter and one such message (included below with the senders permission) echoes the concerts of a number of people who have contacted me regarding this proposed ‘certification scheme’.

The message I received is as follows:

“Hi Mark,

I only use NFPS trainers, normally [names redacted], I have seen your videos on the new CQC regs for restraint, and I just came across the post” – The content of which reads as follows:

“The Restraint Reduction Network (RRN), Care Quality Commission (CQC), Skills for Care (SfC) and Health Education England (HEE) issue [sic] a letter of clarification to all regulated services on the RRN training certification scheme and the action that your organisation will need to take as the requirement for certified training is introduced from April 2021

From April 2021 CQC all services across health and social care will be expected to only use training in restrictive practices that is certified as complying with the Restraint Reduction Network training standards.”

The link in the post goes to this letter issued on the 18th November – https://restraintreductionnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Letter-restraint-training-certification-ALBs-2020.pdf

“I keep being asked by a company “do my trainers meet these standards”, and I say yes. They then ask are they BILD accredited or CQC approved……….

Can you shed some light on this for me on how I can respond to them please as I am genuinely worried that many trainers are going to be out of work through no fault of their own.

[Name Redacted]”

My Response Post Legal Advice

My response to the above message, post having taken the appropriate legal advice, is as follows:

“Hi [Name Redacted]

Thank you for your message and I am aware of the letter that you linked to, a previous version of which was distributed in July 2019.

In the letter linked to in the post it states:

“From April 2021 CQC will expect all services across health and social care to only use training in restrictive practices that is certified as complying with the Restraint Reduction Network training standards.”

There are two points to consider here:

One is that these standards are not mandatory because the parts of the Mental Health Units (Use of Force) Act 2018 that relates to what the Restraint Reduction Network (RRN) Standards and BILD Act certification is offering has not as yet been forthcoming from the Secretary of State for Health.”

Therefore, the current situation is that compliance with the RRN standards is not a legal mandatory requirement as can be seen by the word ‘Prospective’ next to the relevant section of the Act here if you view ‘Latest available (Revised)’ version – (see here- https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/27)”. Note the image below with a red arrow pointing to what version to view.

Furthermore, The Mental Health Units (Use of Force) Act 2018 is

“An Act to make provision about the oversight and management of the appropriate use of force in relation to people in mental health units;……”

As stated right at the top of the Act itself.

Therefore, the provisions of the Mental Health Units (Use of Force) Act 2018 only apply to the following institutions (as taken directly from the Act itself)::

“Mental health unit” means—

1. a health service hospital, or part of a health service hospital, in England, the purpose of which is to provide treatment to in-patients for mental disorder, or

2. an independent hospital, or part of an independent hospital, in England—

(i) the purpose of which is to provide treatment to in-patients for mental disorder, an
(ii) where at least some of that treatment is provided, or is intended to be provided, for the purposes of the NHS.”

Any organisation that falls outside the scope of the definition of a mental health unit provided by the Mental Health Units (Use of Force) Act 2018 is not affected by this law because it doesn’t fall within the scope of what the Act requires.

Secondly the letter that went out from the RRN, CQC, HEE and Skills for Cares tates that:

This is a Condition of Contract – Not a Legal Requirement

That requirement was decided on the basis of an NHS standard contract only and not by law.

That means that the requirement has been set as a condition of contract.

With regards to what, if anything the Secretary of State for Health’s guidance will require is as of yet not known because no guidance has been forthcoming by the Secretary of State for Health as yet. But once again, I stress that at this present moment in time this requirement is a contractual requirement only and not a legislative mandatory one.

Currently however, quite a lot of agencies are not happy with this and are quite prepared to use their preferred training provider/s even if they do not have the BILD Act certification, as long as they can evidence that they can meet or exceed the RRN standards to satisfy CQC’s ‘expectations’ (and I’ll come onto that in a minute).

In short, they are willing to override the ‘contractual’ condition if they are happy with the training provider they are currently using or are intending to use.

Also, a number of trusts are now asking CQC what legitimate sanctions CQC can impose on them if they choose not to get the BILD Act certification or use a training provider certificated under the BILD Act certification scheme.

The reason they are asking that question is because there are no legitimate sanctions that can be imposed and if any illegitimate sanctions were unfairly imposed that had a negative or disproportionate and adverse effect on the service, the service users, staff and someone’s business then that would possibly leave CQC open to a range of legal challenges.

Violence Prevention and Reduction Standard

Furthermore, in an Official document entitled ‘Violence prevention and reduction standard’ issued by the NHS in December 2020, it states:

“The Restraint Reduction Network owns the Restraint Reduction Network Training Standards 2019 and the Certification Scheme (as agreed by UKAS and HEE). The Restraint Reduction Network licences the Standards to certification bodies, subject to agreement to the scheme rules. The scheme rules are outlined in this handbook and licence agreement includes:” and bullet point 3 reads: “Certification bodies licence the standards from Restraint Reduction Network for agreed royalty rate (of 20%)”