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Publication, Part of

Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) - Monthly Summary Statistics - Quarter 1 2015/16 (April to June)

Official statistics
Publication Date:
Geographic Coverage:
England
Geographical Granularity:
Country, Regions, Councils with Adult Social Services Responsibilities (CASSRs), Local Authorities
Date Range:
01 Apr 2015 to 30 Jun 2015

Summary

Since 2009, care homes and hospitals have had to seek authorisation from their Local Authority if they need to deprive an individual who lacks capacity of their liberty as part of their care and/or treatment. The Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) currently collects data from Councils with Adult Social Services Responsibilities (CASSRs or councils) on Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) at case level on an annual basis. This information is then published in the annual report 'Mental Capacity Act, 2005, Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards'.

Supreme Court judgments handed down on 19 March 2014 have led to a substantial increase in the volume of Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) applications received by councils. As a result, a temporary, voluntary, data collection has been introduced to cover the period 1 April 2014 - 30 September 2015. This quarterly collection enables stakeholders to monitor the scale of the Supreme Court judgments' impact on councils in a timely manner, and allows for any increase in the number of DoLS applications to be quantified and evidenced.

In order to minimise the respondent burden on councils, only three data items are collected from each council: the number of DoLS applications made, and of these, the number of requests granted and not granted.

Councils have been encouraged to revise the data submitted for earlier quarters during the submission period for quarter 5, to take account of any changes in historic data since the original submissions for each quarter (further details can be found in Annex B).

This release presents statistics from quarter 5 of the collection, covering 1 April to 30 June 2015, and also includes updated figures for all previous months, from 1 April 2014 to 31 March 2015. The data show the position on 14 July 2015, when the returns were submitted and may be updated by councils in the final collection, as further applications are completed.

Details of previous quarters' reports can be found in the Coherence and Comparability section of the Data Quality Statement at the rear of this report.

Highlights

  • 93 out of 152 councils (61 per cent of all councils) have submitted data for all five quarters, covering the period 1 April 2014 - 30 June 2015.
  • For these councils, 11,300 applications were received in April, 10,500 in May and 11,200 in June - 33,000 in total over the quarter - the highest volume of applications received in any of the 5 quarters. This is also the fourth consecutive increase following 14,800 applications in quarter 1, 21,700 applications in quarter 2, 25,900 applications in quarter 3 and 28,700 applications in quarter 4.
  • Of the 33,000 applications received this quarter, 7,200 (22 per cent) were granted, 2,400 (7 per cent) were not granted and 23,300 (71 per cent) were not yet signed off by the Supervisory Body or were withdrawn.
  • The number of applications per 100,000 people for the 93 councils was 42 in April, 41 in May, 44 in June and 127 for the whole of quarter 5, the highest since the collection began.
  • For the 93 councils across 5 quarters there were 124,100 DoLS applications, of which 39,300 were granted, 12,100 not granted and 72,400 were not yet signed off by the Supervisory Body or were withdrawn.
  • 106 out of 152 councils (70 per cent of all councils) submitted data for quarter 5.
  • The total number of DoLS applications in quarter 5 for these 106 councils was 36,200. Of these, 8,200 (23 per cent) were granted, 2,800 (8 per cent) not granted and 25,200 (70 per cent) not yet signed off  by the Supervisory Body or were withdrawn.
  • During quarter 5 for the 106 councils there were 12,300 DoLS applications in April, 11,600 applications in May and 12,300 applications in June from 106 submitting councils.
  • During quarter 5 for the 106 councils there were 128 applications per 100,000 people (based on the populations of the submitting councils). The number of applications per 100,000 population in April was 42, in May 41 and in June 45.

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Last edited: 16 September 2021 11:57 am