Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards

The new DoLS forms have recently been reduced from 32 to 13.  The DoLS project group are confident that this revision of the forms will play a small part in speeding up the processing of DoLS authorisations without losing necessary quality.

ADASS provide the following guidance to Councils in their role as supervisory body for the Mental Capacity Act Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (please download below).

This note has been produced to offer guidance to Councils about when the intervention of the Court of Protection may be needed in relation to welfare decisions where a person lacks mental capacity for the decision. Any decision in relation to an application to Court of Protection must be informed by the Mental Capacity Act (MCA), the MCA Code of Practice and case law. This is a short summary and overview and not legal advice, which should always be sought in individual situations.

The guide covers the following:

• An Introduction
• Before considering an application to court
• To assist in determining whether court intervention is needed
• To help in determining proportionality
• What options are there if the person has capacity to make the relevant decisions?
• Specific situations in detail