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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Welcome from Helen Lincoln

Hello and welcome to our children's accommodation service Provider Hub. I'm Helen Lincoln the executive director for children families and education here at Essex County Council.

Our provider Hub offers key information for those doing business with us in children's care. We really value our providers and aim for mutual success by understanding the challenges faced by children and young people, but also those experienced by our provider market. We want to engage with you through our Hub our market engagement events and our monthly bulletins to collaboratively build services that make a difference.

We are committed to working in partnership with you to ensure Essex is a great place to do business so that together we can support children who need our help now and in the future. Thank you very much for listening we hope you find our Provider Hub useful.

Last updated: 02/02/2024