Patient was restrained for an hour at University Hospital Wishaw mental health unit, inspectors find

A patient in a mental health unit was placed under restraint for an hour by staff, an inspection has found. The incident at University Hospital Wishaw was one of five cases noted by Healthcare Improvement Scotland where prone restraint - when someone is held face down - was used on patients. Guidance by health bodies suggests that restraint should not be used for longer than 10 minutes, while it has been described as "inhuman and degrading". The report also found that mixed-sex wards at the facility were challenging for staff and patients with regards to privacy and dignity. The Scottish government said the issue should be addressed as a priority, following recent guidance published by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission about single-sex spaces. HIS chief inspector Donna Maclean said concerns had been raised about both the use of prone restraint and the lack of physical health monitoring during and after the restraint taking place. The National Institute for Healthcare and Clinical Excellence (NICE) states manual restraint should not routinely be used for longer than 10 minutes, and prone restraint should be for as short a time as possible. However the report noted: "We obse