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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Using dashboards to set SMART aims

PROSPER runtime dashboards are an excellent tool in detecting and demonstrating trends in the number of falls, UTIs and/or pressure ulcers occurring each month.

The graph below clearly demonstrates that following a relatively stable period of falls per month, an upward trend developed from August 2024 onwards. In this instance it would be appropriate to set a SMART aim to try and turn the trend around. Two possible ways of doing this would be to either set a SMART aim to the end of 2025, when you would probably want to be down to the previous levels of falls per month.

SMART Aim - By the end of 2025 falls to be no more than six per month.

Or alternatively, if you felt this may be too challenging, you could split the period in two, which would allow you to 'take stock' after three months.

SMART Aim - By June 2025 falls to be no more than 15 per month.

If this was achieved, it would have turned the trend around. You could then decide whether to continue to aim for six by the end of year, or whether a consolidation period may be required before trying to reduce the number further. 

Peaks on Dashboards

One good aspect of a runtime dashboard is it shows trends over a period of time, however, data can sometimes create what are known as 'peaks' as shown below.

'Peaks' may be caused for a number of reasons; there may have been an infection in the home, or a respite resident having frequent falls. So, whilst you would want to be aware of a 'peak', and give some thought as to why it occurred, it would not necessarily be advisable to set a SMART aim based on a 'peak'. It is only if the data remains high, or continues to rise, would it become a trend, and a SMART aim should be set.

Remember: There will be natural peaks and troughs in any set of data.

Last updated: 10/09/2025
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