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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Through conversations and engagements with our market and stakeholders, we have agreed on these values whilst working with our market and partners to deliver a diverse care market:

  • To ensure lived experiences of people in Essex truly influence and are embedded in all our approaches
  • To promote trust, transparency and honesty
  • To communicate, engage and collaborate towards shared goals
  • To show respect, objectivity and openness when collaborating
  • To promote learning, change and excellence of social care provision

ECC will:

  • Publish clear commissioning intentions and provide access to a dynamic market position statement
  • Commit to engage and work with ECA and other market forums to provide insight, information and intelligence on existing and up and coming procurements  
  • Share information & opportunities on our care provider hub
  • Commit to collaborative events /workshops to ensure the Adult with Lived Experience shape future commissioning intentions alongside our providers/markets
  • Support our providers to meet their social care skills training, and  support with business skills that can encourage growth and innovation
  • Promote the sector as a whole and celebrate success
  • Encourage a zero-tolerance mandate around discrimination and abuse with the care providers

Provider & Partners will:

  • Invest their time to share insight to collaborate on existing or future markets
  • Support good relationships across with health and social care, and other providers in the market
  • Think Local, working with other providers in their area to support an effective localised model
Last updated: 28/03/2023
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