Summary: Since May 2016 the Council unlawfully decided not to carry out assessments of low and medium priority Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) applications and significantly delayed assessing the remaining applications.

Finding

The Ombudsman upheld the complaint and found fault causing injustice.

Recommendations

To remedy the injustice to those who may be affected, and to prevent similar problems from recurring, we make the following recommendations.

• The Council should produce an action plan for how it is going to deal with all incoming DoLS requests and the backlog of unassessed DoLS requests.
• The Council should produce the action plan within three months of the amendment to the Mental Capacity Act 2005 being finalised by Parliament.
• The action plan should take into account any changes to the law and Government guidance.
• The action plan should include a mechanism for addressing those cases where the request is eventually not approved, and an unlawful deprivation of liberty has had a potentially harmful impact on that person.
• The Council should review the action plan should there be any further changes to the law or Government guidance.

 

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