Mental Capacity Act 2005, Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards England, 2020-21

These official statistics provide findings from the Mental Capacity Act 2005, Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) data collection for the period 1 April 2020 to 31 March 2021. DoLS are a legal framework that exist to ensure that individuals who lack the mental capacity to consent to the arrangements for their care, where such care may amount to a “deprivation of liberty”, have the arrangements independently assessed to ensure they are in the best interests of the individual concerned. The data is collected from local authorities in England, who are the supervisory bodies for authorising deprivations of liberty of adults in care homes and hospitals. There were 256,610 applications for DoLS received during 2020-21. This is a small drop of approximately 3% compared to the previous year, following an average growth rate of 14% each year since 2014-15. The proportion of completed applications in 2020-21 that were not granted was 57%. The main reason was given as change in circumstances, at 60% of all not granted cases. The proportion of standard applications completed within the statutory timeframe of 21 days was 24% in 2020-21. The average length of time for all completed applications was 148 days.