Failure to act on long-delayed reforms to the Mental Capacity Act is contributing to preventable deaths and unlawful detentions according to the Social Care Institute for Excellence.
SCIE’s new analysis of CQC assessments of local authorities reveals that:
- 67 per cent of local authorities inspected were found to require improvements to their Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) arrangements.
- The most frequent issue raised in CQC inspections was failure to process deprivation of liberty requests lawfully or on time.
- Local authorities themselves cited staffing shortages and rising demand as key drivers of the backlog.
The Mental Capacity Act (MCA) is the legal foundation for decisions made on behalf of people who cannot decide for themselves, because of dementia, learning disability, brain injury or serious illness. It governs some of the most sensitive decisions in life: medical treatment, financial control or the need for care.
Implementation of MCA reform was paused in 2020. Meanwhile, DoLS requests are rising sharply, with over 332,000 applications made in 2023/24.
SCIE chief executive Kathryn Marsden OBE said: “This new analysis paints a bleak picture; outdated guidance, overstretched councils and legal uncertainty are resulting in unlawful detentions, avoidable deaths and a system unable to meet demand.
“Every day, people are being deprived of their liberty without legal authority, often because the system to protect them is overwhelmed or misunderstood. This creates a profound risk of human rights breaches, particularly for people with learning disabilities, autism, dementia or long-term mental health conditions.
“With rising demand, mounting delays and legal ambiguity, continuing inaction will only deepen injustice and increase costs, both human and financial.”
