Please can someone provide advice on the current legal position relating to the use of physical intervention (direct physical contact) to individuals who have capacity in a community setting?
Claris
a very complex and emotive are yuo've raised here. In general physical intervention (PI) should really only be used if an individual is presenting a significant danger to themselves or others. If PI is likely to be needed then staff should have received training in both PI and de-escalation techniques. Organisational policy and procedures should support and guide staff in the use of PI and when it is used it should be reasonable and proportionate in terms of level of force and restrictiveness of technique. There should also be a mechanism in place to review the incident to see if other strategies could have been employed and to try and ensure it isn't needed in future circumstances.
Legally, staff providing care to individuals, whether they lack capacity or not have a duty of care, that duty of care includes a duty to prevent the individual coming to harm. It is the responsibility of the service provider to assess the likely risks and determine whether the use of PI may be necessary and then ensure all the other pieces mentioned above are in place.
The British Institute of Learning Disabilities (BILD) provide good best practice guidelines which are equally applicable in other care settings as they are in Learning Disability settings.