Skip to main content

Digital

Publication, Part of

Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) - Monthly Summary Statistics - Quarter 4 2014/15 (January to March)

Official statistics
Publication Date:
Geographic Coverage:
England
Geographical Granularity:
Country, Regions, Councils with Adult Social Services Responsibilities (CASSRs), Local Authorities
Date Range:
01 Apr 2014 to 31 Mar 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 Social Services Responsibilities (CASSRs or councils) on Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) at a 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 led to a substantial increase in the number of Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) applications received by councils. As a result of this situation, the Department of Health (DH) introduced a temporary, voluntary data collection which was approved by the DH/ADASS Outcomes and Information Development Board (OIDB) and the HSCIC Programme and Service Delivery Board.

 

This quarterly collection enables stakeholders to monitor the scale of the Supreme Court judgements' 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 burden on councils only three data items are collected by each council on a quarterly basis including a monthly breakdown, at an aggregate level. The fields collected are the number of DoLS application requests made, and of these, the number of requests granted and not granted.

 

Data is collected on a quarterly basis, covering the period April 2014 - September 2015. This release relates to quarter 4 of the collection, which covers 1 January - 31 March 2015, and also includes updated figures for quarter 1(1 April to 30 June 2014), quarter 2(1 July to 30 September 2014) and quarter 3 (1 October to 31 December 2014). The data shows the position on 17 April 2015, when the returns were submitted, but which may need to be updated by councils as further applications are completed. A comparison to the 2013-14 'Mental Capacity Act, 2005, Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards' annual report is also included.

 

Further details are included in the Resources section below.

Highlights

Quarter 4 2014-15

  • 119 out of 152 councils (78 per cent of all councils) submitted data for quarter 4.
  • The total number of DoLS applications in quarter 4 2014-15 was 36,000. Of these 8,500 (24 per cent) were granted, 2,900 (8 per cent) not granted and 24,600 (68 per cent) not yet signed off  by the Supervisory Body or were withdrawn.
  • During quarter 4 there were 11,100 DoLS applications in January, 11,700 applications in February and 13,100 applications in March from 119 submitting councils.
  • During quarter 4 there were 104 applications per 100,000 people (based on the populations of the submitting councils). The number of applications per 100,000 population in January was 32, in February 34 and in March 38.

Councils which have submitted all four quarters

  • 116 out of 152 councils (76 per cent of all councils) submitted data for all four quarters, covering the period 1 April 2014 - 31 March 2015.
  • April 2014 had the lowest number of applications (4,100) and March 2015 the largest number (13,000).
  • For the 116 councils in 2014-15 (12 months) there were 113,300 DoLS applications, of which 36 per cent were granted, 10 per cent not granted and 54 per cent were not yet signed off by the Supervisory Body or were withdrawn. Over the 12 months there were 334 applications per 100,000 people.

Numbers are rounded to the nearest 100.
Percentages may not total 100 due to rounding.
Councils were able to revise their data for quarter 1, 2 and 3 during subsequent submissions.

Resources

Related Links

Last edited: 16 September 2021 11:56 am