The Care Quality Commission (CQC) would like to hear about people’s experiences of the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards

The Care Quality Commission [CQC] monitors the operation of The Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards in England and reports on this each year. 

As with previous years, the CQC want to understand better the experiences of people who are or have been subject to the Safeguards and their families, to help inform our reporting for 2014/15.

Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards, are part of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA), and are used to protect the rights of people who lack the ability (mental capacity) to make certain decisions for themselves.

CQC are calling for examples for the year 2014/15 which will tell them about the experiences of the person at the centre of the process. They would like to hear about cases where the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards worked well for the person and cases where they did not work so well. They would also be interested to receive any examples of good and poor practice regarding the use of the Safeguards in care homes or hospitals, including whether and how the relevant person’s perspective was taken into account.

It is also particularly helpful to know:

• was the person and others concerned with their care, involved in the decision
• did someone help them to understand the reason for the deprivation of liberty
• if they were unhappy with the decision did they have a representative to support them to appeal against it
• was the decision kept under review and the restrictions reduced or removed as soon as possible. 

CQC would like to receive any information during May and June and you can send it to; engagementandinvolvement@cqc.org.uk