The Liberty Protection Safeguards Are Law – Here Are The Highlights

The Mental Capacity (Amendment) Act 2019 has received Royal Assent. That means that the new liberty protection safeguards (LPS) will replace the current deprivation of liberty safeguards (DoLs). The LPS are due to come in in 2020 although there might be a period when the two regimes overlap.

The LPS apply to people aged sixteen and over. You might recall that DoLs only applies to people aged eighteen or over.

The LPS has a wider application than DoLs, which applies to hospital and care homes. The LPS can be used for supported living arrangements, private and domestic settings, and also to organise arrangements for transporting people or arrangements in a day centre. The LPS can authorise arrangements for somebody who is being cared for in more than one place.

Responsible bodies can authorise the deprivation of liberty. There can only be one responsible body for an authorisation. For example, if the person is mainly in an NHS hospital, the authorisation will be dealt with by the hospital manager. If the arrangements are mainly carried out through NHS Continuing Care, the clinical commissioning group will be the responsible body. Other arrangements will be dealt with by the local authority.

An authorisation can be made if the person lacks capacity to consent to the arrangements and has a mental disorder within the meaning of Section 1(2) of the Mental Health Act 1983 and the arrangements are necessary to prevent harm to the person and proportionate in relation to the likelihood and seriousness of harm to the person. There is a consultation process and a pre-authorisation review by somebody who is not involved in the day to day care or treatment of the person or a connection with the care home if that is where the care is taking place. A new role of an approved mental capacity professional (AMCP) is introduced.

If the cared for person or others want to challenge the authorisation that will be dealt with by the Court of Protection.

Wrigleys Comment

It will be interesting to see...