Liberty Protection Safeguards (LPS)
July 2022: Liberty Protection Safeguard Resources
The Care Provider Alliance held three webinars in June 2022 on the Liberty Protection Safeguards’ Consultation. The webinars were hosted by the CPA and our Mental Capacity & LPS expert, Rachel Griffiths.
Questions from participants were compiled and answered. You can access them at the following link: LPS Webinar Q&A’s
June 2022: Liberty Protection Safeguards Resources
NCF LPS Briefing Pack
Following the launch of the public consultation, we have produced a briefing pack that contains:
- Information about the consultation
- A summary of the consultation document
- Information about webinars
- A list of useful resources.
The briefing pack can be accessed from the following link NCF LPS Briefing Pack.
LPS Briefing Note from Rachel Griffiths
Our MCA expert Rachel Griffiths has also produced a document that explains the context and provides an overview to the consultation on the MCA code of practice and LPS implementation. The document addresses the following points:
- Reason for the consultation
- How the consultation works: main documents
- Further implementation documents
- Feedback on spelling mistakes etc. in draft code
- What can providers do now in readiness for LPS?
CPA LPS webinars
The Care Provider Alliance held three webinars on the Liberty Protection Safeguards’ Consultation. The webinars were hosted by the CPA and our Mental Capacity & LPS expert, Rachel Griffiths.
Each webinar focused on what LPS means for different parts of the sector.
the first focused on what LPS means for home care (click here to view session presentation)
the second focused on care homes (click here to view session presentation)
the third focused on Supported Living and Extra Care schemes.(click here to view session presentation)
The webinars offered the chance to explore the LPS proposals in more detail, understand what it means for each of the 3 parts of the sector (homecare, care home, supported living and extra care) and offered a chance for the audience to ask questions.
The video recording and presentation from each session can be accessed at the following link.
March 2022: Consultation on Code of Practice
After a long delay, the government has launched a 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. The consultation will run for 16 weeks until 7 July 2022. Alongside the consultation are six sets of draft regulations which will underpin the LPS. Four of these will apply in England only, and the remainder will apply to both. There are quite a lot of documents and some of them are very long so it will take us a week or two before we have a briefing for the membership. The documents published include:
- Consultation document – Changes to the MCA Code of Practice and Implementation of the LPS (60 pages)
- Draft MCA Code of Practice (518 Pages)
- Draft MCA Code of Practice – Summary
- Draft LPS regulations: Assessment, Determinations and Pre-Authorisation Review – England (6 pages)
- Draft LPS regulations: Training and Approval for Approved Mental Capacity Professionals – England (8 pages)
- Draft LPS regulations: Independent Mental Capacity Advocates – England (3 pages)
- Draft LPS regulations: Consequential Provisions – England and Wales (8 pages)
- Draft LPS regulations: Commencement, Transitional and Savings Provisions – England and Wales (3 pages)
- Draft LPS regulations: Monitoring and Reporting – England (5 pages)
- LPS implementation: draft national workforce and training strategy – England (35 pages)
- LPS implementation: draft training framework (38 pages)
- LPS implementation: annex to the draft LPS training framework (9 pages)
- LPS Implementation: draft LPS National Minimum Data Set (England)
- LPS implementation: draft impact assessment (56 pages)
- LPS implementation: draft impact equalities assessment
- Consultation privacy notice
Links to all of the above can be found on the public consultation page.
April 2021: Liberty Protection Safeguards
The DHSC has been doing a considerable amount of detailed work on the LPS during the pandemic and reconvened the LPS National Steering Group with key stakeholders in the autumn of 2020. Our Policy Director, Liz Jones, sits on the group, on behalf of the NCF and the CPA.
As you will recall, in July 2020, implementation of this has been postponed from October 2020 to April 2022. However, this looks like an increasingly challenging timescale, especially as the consultation process on the Code of practice and the regulations still needs to happen and there is a significant amount of work to be done across the relevant sectors in terms of all the preparation and training and communications work.
Key points to note
Updated Impact Assessment for the Mental Capacity (Amendment) Act 2019: the DHSC has published its updated the Impact Assessment for the Act, and another factsheet on LPS
At the February Steering Group meeting, there was a full discussion about the impact assessment.
Key points of feedback included:
- The training strategy and plans for ‘workforce readiness’ have moved on significantly since the Act, and the next IA needs to reflect that.
- Plans for LPS, and assessment of its impact on the sectors who will implement it need to take account of the short-and long-term impacts of Covid-19.
- The Impact Assessment should assess the impact of the transition year between the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguardsand LPS.
- Data on deprivations for the 16 and 17-year old group and in unregulated settings is limited. This could be improved for future updates of the IA.
- Future assessments could say more on how central Government will support sectors who will implement LPS, for example on workforce readiness and training.
- The estimated costs of assessments under LPS may need to be refined.
The DHSC emphasised that data and evidence from attendees would help inform the next Impact Assessment and invited further contributions in writing. The Government will undertake more detailed impact assessment of LPS overall, including policy details to be specified in secondary legislation, after public consultation.
Useful advice from the DHSC for members to keep up to date on the LPS::
- Sign up to DHSC newsletter to get regular updates – email cop@dhsc.gov.uk
- Keep an eye out for the draft Code of Practice and public consultation for more detail get ready to read and respond
- Keep an eye out for the DHSC Workforce and Training Strategy
- In the meantime, some things you can be doing to prepare for LPS includes:
- Workforce mapping to identify who will need to understand it & potential gaps;
- Assessing current DoLS numbers within your area; and,
- Mental Capacity Act training awareness raising
- Think about what training your organisation will need, including reading our training framework.
- Continue seeking DoLS authorisations or Court Orders in the meantime, where appropriate
July 2019 – Liberty Protection Safeguards (LPS): update on the implementation plan
Plans and processes are now under way nationally to produce a code of practice and regulations to support LPS by spring 2020 ahead of LPS implementation in October 2020. Deprivation of liberty safeguards (DoLS) authorisations cannot be given from that date, but existing authorisations will, where appropriate, continue to their expiry date. Hence there will be no initial bulge, and the period of time running two somewhat different systems will be a short as possible. By October 2021 no DoLS authorisations will exist, and only LPS will be in use.
Training and implementation resources are being worked on by DHSC and groups of stakeholders. These will start being made available probably in early autumn, followed by a public consultation on the code of practice, with the aim of having materials, both those that are generally useful and those targeted at specific groups of stakeholders, available in spring 2020.
The latest briefing from our LPS expert, Rachel Griffiths, can be found here July 2019 LPS-Update
June 2019 – Briefing to Members
Caroline Dinenage, Minister for Care at the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has published an open letter (which you will find here) in which she outlines the progress so far with the Liberty Protection Safeguards (LPS) and what Government plans to do. Also, very importantly, her letter gives us some key dates. In this briefing, we discuss what we learn from this letter, what else we know about the process and timing of the changes to our legal framework and practice, outline some ‘known unknowns’ and when the sector will be fully informed, and, in a positive finale, what we can do now to prepare for the LPS.
Read the full briefing here June 2019 LPS Briefing Note
; 
