A HEALTH trust in Oxfordshire has defended its use of controversial face-down restraints, saying the technique is deployed only as "the very last resort".

Use of the technique has dropped by 27 per cent at Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust over three years but it was still used 281 times in 2015/16.

Face-down restraints involve staff pinning a patient down with their face to the floor and the practice was considered by ministers for banning in 2013.

Oxford Health spokeswoman Charvy Narain said: "Patients are restrained in this way only as the very last resort, to prevent life-threatening self-harm or harm to others.

"We have conducted a thorough review of the use of physical restraint in patients, and put in place staff training that reduces the level of distress and the potential for harm."

The overall figure for restraints at Oxford Health - which includes all physical contact, including helping patients to sit up - increased from 1,451 in 2013/14 to 1,996 in 2015/16, which the trust attributed to a rise in patient numbers. A total of 20 patients were injured as a result last year.

At Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust, which will continue running mental health services in Oxfordshire until 2017, face-down restraints had also dropped but with injuries sustained by patients during all forms of physical contact rising from 328 to 511 over the same period.

Farmer Tracy Betteridge successfully sued Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust last year after her 76-year-old father Ivor was injured while staying at a centre for severe dementia in Banbury. In February 2013 he was left with a head injury after a male agency staff member tried held him down while nurses tried to wash him.

Miss Betteridge said she was “stunned” by the new figures.

She said: “Actually the last thing you want is to send your relatives there but it’s the only option, and there is a level of trust that goes with that."

Oxford East MP Andrew Smith said: "It’s very important that every instance is reviewed and that front-line staff have the right training.

"We have to remember too that these staff do a difficult and demanding job, sometimes confronted by patients who can be aggressive or violent.

"I’m very concerned to see injuries to patients on the rise at Southern Health, which has such a poor record in its care of learning disabled people."

Southern Health spokeswoman Liz Pusey said due to "severe" mental health problems suffered by some patients physical restraint was "sometimes the only option".

She added: "The decrease in face-down restraints means we are now using more less restrictive forms of restraint.

"However, these less restrictive forms leave more room for causing minor injuries either to patients or staff.

"The vast majority of injuries recorded result in low or minimal harm. We are closely monitoring the occurrence of injuries and the circumstances in which they occur, and engage with other agencies such as safeguarding boards to ensure that there is external scrutiny."

Across the board at NHS trusts that responded to Freedom of Information requests from the Liberal Democrats, incidents of face-down restraints had dropped by three per cent between 2014/15 and 2015/16, but the total number of recorded restraints rose by 16.6 per cent.