HIGHLIGHT

Care homes often slow to make applications for Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards

Care homes often have to be ‘nudged’ by other professionals to make a Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DOLS) application and the information needed for the assessment is not always readily available from care home staff, according to a newly published study. More positively, evidence suggests that DOLS processes lead to changes to the relevant person’s care, with several people receiving less restrictive care following the assessments.

The study, by the late Joan Langan, Marcus Jepson and colleagues at the School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol, examined the implementation of DOLS in England and their impact on care practice. The DOLS procedures were introduced in 2009 to protect people who ‘for their own safety and in their own best interests’ need care and treatment that may deprive them of their liberty, but who lack the capacity to consent to this.

Professor Jill Manthorpe, SSCR Associate Director, said: "This is a unique study of the workings of the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards that has already influenced Parliamentary scrutiny of the Mental Capacity Act 2005. For practitioners there are helpful messages about how the potential to emphasise Safeguarding rather than Deprivation should be a key pointer for practice. Drawing on interviews with a wide circle of participants, this work offers much to current practitioners. It is a lasting legacy to the work of the late Dr Joan Langan - the originator and inspiration of this research."

Read more; read the full summary findings