The Australian Human Rights Commission is calling on the Federal Government to introduce independent monitoring of involuntary patients on psychiatric wards, to ensure the best practice is undertaken for all involved.

The call comes after reports in Australian media about the use of techniques such as secluding, restraining and forcibly sedating non-cooperative patients.

Federal Minister for Mental Health Jacinta Collins says she has experienced the concern sparked by the recent reports, with a Department spokesman saying she "shares the concerns about the unnecessary use of seclusion and restraint, particularly of children".

The Australian Human Rights Commission says state and federal governments should ratify an international agreement called the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which requires independent monitoring of the treatment of people on psychiatric wards.

Last week The Australian published reports citing clinicians, experts and studies, which suggested that coercive practices were linked to deaths an average of once a year in Victoria; that injuries occurred in 20 per cent of the thousands of yearly restraint episodes; and that more than half of the thousands of patients subjected to seclusion each year experienced on-going mental trauma.

Human Rights Commissioner Janet Meagher says it is “time for action”, calling for “bodies [with] independent powers to change accepted processes and protect human rights”.

Australia began the process of agreeing to the optional UN protocol in 2009, but little progress has been made since.