The Supreme Court's judgment on deprivation of liberty

You may be aware that the Supreme Court has recently issued a judgment which significantly changes the legal approach to determining whether a person is deprived of their liberty. The judgement can be seen here A Reference by the Attorney General for Northern Ireland of a devolution issue under paragraph 34 o….

We would encourage you to familiarise yourselves with the judgment and carefully consider the implications for your services and practice. Please see the following links for further information: CQC statement on the Supreme Court's judgment on deprivation of liberty - Care Quality Commission and 2026-UKSC-16-Summary-for-website.pdf.

We ask that you refer to this updated position when making any new referrals to the DoLS team.  In addition, as the change came into effect immediately from 2 June, please review any recent DoLS referrals you have made. You should consider whether, in light of this revised approach, any of these referrals may no longer be appropriate.

We hope this offers reassurance whilst we wait for additional National guidance to be disseminated.  At this stage we don’t have further information, but if you have a specific query, you can contact the MCA DoLS Duty Team at Dolforms@essex.gov.uk

Essex County Council - Provider Hub
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Essex Residential Child Care Strategy Team

To develop the Residential Care market in partnership with external providers -  ‘a local response to local needs’.

We are driven by the understanding that to care for young people, requires a partnership approach to care.

In Practice, this means we are keen to work with providers who wish to respond to our need for local residential care and young people services based in Essex (and the surrounding areas)

We would encourage any providers or people developing services wishing to work with Essex to contact us. 

childcare.residentialstrategy@essex.gov.uk

Last updated: 19/01/2026