An interesting case study of the misuse of a Deprivation of Liberties Safeguards (DoLS) authorisation, which demonstrates the importance of good practice. Care homes and hospitals have to take out these authorisations if they're going to stop you doing things that normally you would be free to do, for example go out on your own if you're unsafe. My view is that it's not good enough just to comply with the safeguards; here you have a man who was legitimately deprived of his freedom, because he was at risk when he was living on his own with dementia. But once admitted to a care home, they did not work at trying to give him as much freedom within the constraints that were necessary, and so lumbered him with a more miserable life than they needed to do. I can't say often enough that just caring for older people won't do, you have to give them a worthwhile life. Even though someone has their freedom curtailed in some respects, it's still possible to give them freedoms in many other aspects of their lives. Social workers should be supporting care staff to do that, even if the managers of the care homes isn't good enough to manage it on their own.
This comes from the annual Care Quality Commission review of the operation of the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards. The development of these safeguards has been going very slowly, and it is suspected that a lot of care homes and hospitals are breaking the law. It seems that, while there is some good practice, there are still a lot of people who do not know about the safeguards, and so cannot operate them correctly. Although there is confusion about what deprivation of liberty is, what the DoLS scheme does is force you to think it through. The CQC review provides a lot of interesting case studies and citations to recent legal cases, and comprehensive links to guidance.
Link to the CQC review.
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