The long-awaited public consultation on proposed changes to the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) Code of Practice for England and Wales, which includes guidance on the new LPS system, has been published. It is a joint consultation published by DHSC and MoJ and runs for 16 weeks from the 17 March until 7 July 2022.
The consultation documents identifies 25 questions that the team would like to have views on and responses can be made online. Alongside the consultation, six sets of draft regulations, which will underpin LPS, have also been published. While these do not require consultation views are sought on the policy detail. The documents are:
The long promised consultation on a new MCA Code of Practice, to account for changes required by the planned implementation of liberty protection safeguards, is to open very soon according to the latest bulletin from the implementation team. The consultation will run for a longer period than initially envisaged - 16 weeks instead of 12 - apparently to account for May’s local government elections. Six sets of regulations will also be published alongside the consultation (though formally no consultation is required). The Government is expected to respond to the consultation in Winter 2022-23. An implementation date for liberty protection safeguards is not expected to be set until then. The full text of the newsletter can be downloaded below.
Mr Justice Hayden, The Vice President of The Court of Protection, has issued new guidance on judges visiting P in SMT cases (Serious Medical Treatment). As he explains in the paragraph [1]
"This short practical guidance is intended to provide, hopefully helpful, suggestions as to how the Court and practitioners might ensure that meetings between the Judge and P, during proceedings, are conducted most effectively and enhance the participation of P. Earlier guidance was issued on the 14th November 2016, by Charles J, as Vice President of the Court. That document was primarily directed towards Health and Welfare cases and provided some additional assistance to participation of P in Property and Affairs cases. It did not seek to address meetings between the Judge and P in Serious Medical Treatment (SMT) cases. In principle, there should be no reason why the approach in SMT cases should differ from other cases. This document is intended to supplement, not to replace the earlier guidance. As the two require to be read together, and for convenience of access, I propose to reissue the 2016 guidance. I would add only one caveat. Charles J did not and could not have anticipated the wholesale migration to video conferencing platforms that has characterised every aspect of professional and indeed private life in the last 20 months. His guidance should be read with these developments in mind." It follows on the heels of the judgment of the Court of Appeal in Re AH in which The President suggested that new guidance was necessary. Read the guidance in full on Bailii The planned implementation of liberty protection safeguards has been delayed from April 2022 and no new proposed implementation date has been set.
The Liberty Protection Safeguards team have emailed regarding the withdrawal of the coronavirus pandemic guidance following the lifting of restrictions. The email is reproduced below.
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