Government broadly accepts Law Commission’s proposals to reform DoLS but timetable unclear

The Government has published it’s final response to the Law Commission’s proposals on the reform of Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS). 

The Commission had been asked to examine the problem in 2015 and, following a public consultation, published its proposals in March 2017. After some delay, the Government has published its final response today, announced in a Written Statement to Parliament by Caroline Dinenage, Minister of State for Health.

The proposals have been broadly accepted, with the Government favouring the Liberty Protection Safeguards model set out by the Law Commission. However some proposals have been put to one side while the Government pursues a review of mental health law and one, that the Government should consider reviewing mental capacity law relating to all children with a view to statutory codification, has been rejected.

As yet, there is no clear timetable for implementation with the Minister stating that 

"we want to ensure that Liberty Protection Safeguards fit with the conditions and future direction of the health and social care sector, so we will continue to work through the detail of the recommendations and engage further with stakeholders particularly on implementation. We will bring forward legislation to implement the model when parliamentary time allows."

The full response, which sets out the Government's stance on each of the proposals, can be downloaded here 

The original Law Commission proposals can be found on their site.