Mental Health Units (Use of Force) Act 2018: What "Seni's Law" Requires From Providers

The Mental Health Units (Use of Force) Act 2018 — widely known as "Seni's Law" after Olaseni Lewis, who died following prolonged restraint by police at a London mental health unit in 2010 — places specific, auditable legal duties on providers of inpatient mental health care in England. Most provisions came into force on 31 March 2022, and they are still a live compliance area: CQC inspections continue to check whether providers can actually evidence what the Act requires, not just that a policy exists on paper.

Who the Act applies to

The Act applies to mental health units in England — both NHS hospitals and independent hospitals providing NHS-funded inpatient treatment for mental disorder. It sits alongside, but is legally distinct from, the Mental Health Act 1983 framework covered in our guide to the Mental Health Act 2025 changes for England and Wales: where the Mental Health Act governs detention and treatment, the Use of Force Act specifically governs how physical, mechanical, chemical and seclusion-based restrictive interventions are authorised, recorded and reduced.

The "responsible person" and the use-of-force policy

Every organisation operating a mental health unit must appoint a "responsible person" — someone employed by the relevant health organisation with appropriate seniority — who is accountable for the unit's compliance with the Act. One responsible person can cover multiple units within the same organisation. That person must publish a use-of-force policy that explicitly sets out what steps the provider will take to reduce the use of force, not just how force will be applied when it happens. The Act requires consultation with staff, patients and other relevant stakeholders before the policy is published and before any substantial revision.

Staff training is a specific legal duty, not best practice

Training is not optional good practice under this Act — it is a statutory requirement. Providers must give staff training covering de-escalation techniques, trauma awareness, diversity and legal/ethical issues connected to the use of force, alongside the practical safety elements of any physical intervention. Training must be delivered "as soon as reasonably practicable" for both existing and new staff, with regular refresher training built into the provider's ongoing training cycle — a one-off induction session is not sufficient to demonstrate compliance.

Recording every use of force — and why that matters at inspection

Providers must keep a detailed record of every use of force (aside from genuinely negligible incidents) for a minimum of three years. Each record needs to capture the reason force was used, its duration, the type of force applied, relevant characteristics of the patient involved, and the outcome. These records feed into annual statistics compiled centrally, and CQC inspectors use them directly to assess whether a unit's actual restrictive-practice pattern matches what its policy says should be happening — a mismatch between the policy and the recorded data is one of the more common findings in mental health ward inspections.

What's already in force

Most of the Act's substantive provisions commenced on 31 March 2022. A specific provision requiring police officers to wear body cameras when attending a mental health unit (Section 12) came into force separately, on 18 August 2022. Statistical reporting requirements continue to apply on an ongoing basis. For providers who registered or opened new mental health units since 2022, it's worth explicitly confirming that onboarding and induction training for every new starter has been mapped against these specific duties, rather than assuming generic restraint training covers the statutory requirement.

How this connects to your wider restrictive-practice training

The Use of Force Act's training duty overlaps with, but is not identical to, the sector-wide move toward RRN-certified restraint training covered in our guide to restraint and seclusion training requirements. A provider can hold RRN-certified training for its physical-intervention trainers and still fall short of this Act's specific policy-publication, consultation and three-year recording duties — the two compliance requirements need to be checked separately, not assumed to be satisfied by the same training programme.

Frequently asked questions

Does Seni's Law apply to all mental health settings, or just inpatient units?
It applies specifically to mental health units providing inpatient treatment for mental disorder — both NHS and NHS-funded independent hospitals. Community mental health teams and outpatient services fall outside its direct scope, though many of its training principles are applied more broadly as good practice.

Who is legally accountable if the Act's duties aren't met?
The "responsible person" appointed by the provider organisation carries direct accountability for the unit's compliance, though the duties themselves sit with the provider organisation as a whole.

Does AMHP training cover this Act?
Not directly — AMHP qualification, covered in our guide to qualifying as an Approved Mental Health Professional, focuses on assessment and detention powers under the Mental Health Act 1983, not inpatient use-of-force policy and recording duties, which sit with the provider organisation's own training programme.

Keeping restrictive-practice compliance current is an ongoing CPD requirement for mental health inpatient staff. Explore Learnsignal's CPD courses for structured training that keeps pace with evolving statutory guidance.