Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards Independent Medical Practitioner Assessments

Adult Care and Support have a requirement for Independent Medical Practitioners to provide Mental Health, Mental Capacity and Eligibility Assessments under the Mental Capacity Act (2005) Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards. The aim of the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards is to provide legal protection for those vulnerable people who are deprived of their liberty otherwise than under the Mental Health Act 1983, to prevent arbitrary decisions to deprive a person of liberty and to give rights to challenge deprivation of liberty authorisations.

The safeguards apply to people who lack capacity to consent to care or treatment, who are suffering from a mental disorder and are resident in a hospital or registered care home. When introduced, the Government expected that the implementation of the safeguards would reduce the numbers of people deprived of their liberty in care homes and hospitals and to protect the rights of those that are.

The Local Authority has a requirement to undertake Mental Health, Mental Capacity and Eligibility Assessments as mandated in the Mental Capacity Act (Deprivation of Liberty: Standard Authorisations, Assessments and Ordinary Residence) Regulations 2008 and in line with the activity and quality standards specified in this document. Since the Supreme Court cases of P v Cheshire West and Chester Council and P&Q v Surrey County Council Local Authorities have seen a 10 fold increase in applications under DoLS.

In response, Cornwall Council has been required to agree a set of assessment priority criteria which will be applied to all incoming assessment requests and it is predicted that this will result in the DoLS Team completing approximately 600 full assessments each year. These assessments represent the cases that present most risk/complexity and form approximately one third of the total referral numbers.

As part of the strategic plan to complete 600 assessments per year there is a statutory requirement that the majority of these will need an assessment carried out by an independent medical practitioner who has suitable experience and training under DoLS. The current estimate is that 400 people a year will need an assessment from a medic and this is the level of activity that the proposed framework agreement is based on. The proceeding procurement and contractual arrangements will serve to increase and maintain service quality which will be measurable by audit.