Correspondence

The use of physical restraint in the UK remains a controversial and emotive topic for patients and health professionals. Mary Braine discusses some of the legal and ethical issues surrounding this subject (Br J Neurosci Nurs 1(4): 177–83). In the field of neuroscience nursing restraint may be used to ensure the patient receives the appropriate treatment and to provide a safe environment. As a clinical nurse specialist for stroke, I have often had to consider this issue, and after contacting other stroke units and conducting a detailed literature search to review current practice around the use of restraint I found that no clear guidelines were available. I therefore developed a policy for the use of physical restraint for patients in the acute phase of stroke to prevent them from pulling and dislodging their nasogastric tube. The trust's legal department and senior nurses were involved in reviewing this policy.