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

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Useful Contacts

 

Mental Health Contract Management: mhcontractmanagement@essex.gov.uk

AWD or Direct Uplift Requests: awd.procurement@essex.gov.uk 

Supplier Invoices/Payments: Ap.servicecentre@essex.gov.uk

Supplier Workflow Notification Queries: suppliers@essex.gov.uk

Emergency Duty Out of Hours Team: eds@essex.gov.uk

Service Placement Team: service.placementteam@essex.gov.uk

 

Safeguarding: Please refer to ECC's Safeguarding Adults Decision Support Guidance. Here you will find examples of when, and when not, to raise a safeguarding concern. However, the list is not exhaustive therefore should you need advice you can call the Organisational Safeguarding Duty line on 033301 39032 or email org.safeguards@essex.gov.uk.

Report a concern about an adult | Essex County Council

Alternatively you can contact us via the following:

Essex - 0345 6037630 (out of hours 0345 606 1212)

Southend - 01702 215008                

Thurrock - 01375 511000

You can also speak to the Adult's allocated social worker.

Last updated: 02/12/2024