The Liberty Protection Safeguards (LPS) will replace the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) and will come into force this year. This was announced in a Mental Capacity (Amendment) Bill which passed into law in May 2019.

SCIE have put together a full briefing for health and social care staff that provides an overview of LPS. The key messages from the briefing are:

• LPS (formerly DoLS) is rooted firmly within the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) and all the key principles of the MCA fully apply.
• LPS will be about safeguarding the rights of people who are under high levels of care and supervision but lack the mental capacity to consent to those arrangements for their care.
• LPS will apply to people in care homes, hospitals, supported accommodation, Shared Lives accommodation and their own homes.
• LPS will apply to everyone over the age of 16.
• LPS will need to be authorised in advance where possible by what will be termed ‘the Responsible Body’.
• Where a person is deprived of their liberty before an authorisation has been given, the MCA has been amended to provide the authority to continue to care for the person.

Why the change?
DoLS has been criticised for being overly complicated. The Law Commission’s report concluded that DoLS; are overly technical and legalised, are not meaningful for disabled people and their families or carers, and fail to secure buy-in from health and social care practitioners. The UK Government passed the Mental Capacity (Amendment) Act 2019, to replace DoLS with LPS. Some things will stay the same, some elements are reinforced, and some will change.

LPS is designed to:

• Create a new simplified legal framework that is accessible and clear to all affected parties.
• Deliver improved outcomes for persons deprived of their liberty and their family/unpaid carers.
• Provide a simplified authorisation process capable of operating effectively in all settings.
• Ensure that the MCA works as intended, by placing the person at the heart of decision-making.
• Provide a comprehensive, proportionate and lawful mechanism by which deprivations of liberty for young people aged 16 and 17 can be authorised.
• Ensure increased compliance with the law, improve care and treatment for people lacking mental capacity and provide a system of authorisation in a cost-effective manner.

What can you do to prepare for LPS?

• Carrying out good-quality mental capacity assessments will considerably reduce the time needed to review the documentation.
• Carrying out good-quality, best-interest decision-making that is recorded will reduce the work needed when it comes to evidencing an authorisation under LPS.
• Ensuring consultation with people who provide care for the service user is a routine part of best-interests decision-making will reduce the risk of challenge.
• All staff need to be aware of the definition of deprivation of liberty.
• All staff need to be aware of the concept of restrictions and restraint as it applies within the MCA.

As part of the work to support the social care sector to prepare and embed LPS within everyday practice, SCIE has produced a short video to encourage the sector to consider how LPS will seek to promote practice that aligns with human rights and the core principles and duties of the Care Act 2014.

If you would like to discuss the above, or about how we can collaborate, please let us know. To get in touch, email [email protected] or call us on 03305 552233.

As a specialist, family-run recruitment business, we provide a proactive and consultative approach to recruitment within Social Care. We help organisations to target issues such as continuity of staffing, reducing spend where you have a high volume of agency usage and supporting those who have specific talent requirements or are in hard to fill locations. We can help with any immediate staffing requirements or longer-term recruitment projects to ultimately save you time and money on agency spend.

Our customers tell us that we are their main stream of important information regarding the social care sector. We want to ensure the content we are sharing regularly is relevant and useful, so we would love to hear from you! What topics that you would like us to share next?