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Mostyn Powers

Posted on March 16, 2015 by suesspiciousminds

 

Long-term readers will have picked up by now that there’s always something of value in a judgment by Mostyn J.  He follows that Raymond Chandler dictum of putting a diamond on every page.

 

This one follows his earlier decision (which many of us questioned at the time) that he wasn’t bound by the Supreme Court in Cheshire West and went with the principle that had been rejected by them to decide that a person wasn’t being deprived of their liberty

https://suesspiciousminds.com/2014/11/20/have-we-just-given-up-on-the-notion-of-the-supreme-court-being-supreme/

In that case, Mostyn J declared that he was bound by the decision of the Supreme Court in Cheshire West, though making it plain that he didn’t agree with it, but then didn’t follow it, distinguishing his case on its facts. He felt that it was something that the Supreme Court should look at again, and invited an appeal.

 

This is the follow-up judgment after the Court of Appeal reached the entirely unexpected conclusion that the Supreme Court had already decided that the FACT of whether a person was deprived of their liberty didn’t take into account whether their disabilities made that necessary, that’s for the second stage as to whether the Court should authorise that deprivation of liberty.

Readers may recall a previous occasion on which Mostyn J didn’t take it entirely in his stride when the Court of Appeal overruled him and he disagreed with their view.  He drops the “with the profoundest of respect” bomb during the judgment where he has to deal with the case again.

https://suesspiciousminds.com/2014/10/26/with-the-profoundest-respect/

 

So, given that scenario, one is following the firework code when reading Mostyn J’s decision.

Rochdale v KW 2015

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCOP/2015/13.html

 

Firstly, here’s what happened in  the Court of Appeal  (I haven’t seen this reported yet, but given that the original Rochdale v KW 2014 unleashed the contents of a cattery into a pigeon coop, it is important)

The appeal was fixed for a full oral hearing on 4 or 5 February 2015. However, on 30 January 2015 the Court of Appeal allowed the appeal against my decision by consent and without a hearing purportedly pursuant to the terms of CPR PD52A para 6.4. Its order provided as follows:

“UPON reading the appeal bundle filed with the court.

AND UPON the Respondent confirming that it does not intend to oppose the appeal

IT IS ORDERED that:

1. This appeal is allowed.

2. For the review period as defined below, KW is to reside and receive care at home pursuant to arrangements made by Rochdale Council and set out in the Care Plan; and to the extent that the restrictions in place pursuant to the Care Plan are a deprivation of KW’s liberty, such deprivation of KW’s liberty is hereby authorised.

3. If a change or changes to the Care Plan that render it more restrictive have as a matter of urgent necessity been implemented Rochdale Council must apply to the Court of Protection for an urgent review of this order on the first available date after the implementation of any such changes.

4. If a change or changes to the Care Plan that render it more restrictive are proposed (but are not required as a matter of urgent necessity) Rochdale Council must apply to the Court of Protection for review of this order before any such changes are made.

5. In any event. Rochdale Council must make an application to the Court no less than one month before the expiry the review period as defined below for a review of this order if at that time the Care Plan still applies to KW. Such application shall be made in accordance with any Rules and Practice Directions in effect at the date of the application being filed or, if not otherwise specified, on form COPDOL10.

6. Any review hearing shall be conducted as a consideration of the papers unless any party requests an oral hearing or the Court decides that an oral hearing is required.

7. “The review period” shall mean 12 months from the date on which this order was made or, if an application for review has been filed at Court before that date, until determination of such review application.

8. Nothing shall published that will reveal the identify of the Appellant who shall continue to be referred to as “KW” until further order pursuant to section 12 of the Administration of Justice Act 1960.

9. There shall no order for costs between the parties.

10. There shall be a detailed assessment of KW’s public funding costs.”

Attached to the order was a piece of narrative, prepared by counsel for the appellant, which provided as follows:

“Statement of reasons for allowing the appeal as required pursuant to CPR, PD52A at para 6.4.

The reason for inviting the Court of Appeal to allow the appeal by consent is that the learned judge erred in law in holding that there was not a deprivation of liberty. He was bound by the decision of the Supreme Court in P (by his litigation friend the Official Solicitor) v Cheshire West and Chester Council & ors [2014] UKSC 19; [2014] AC 986 (“Cheshire West“) to the effect that a person is deprived of their liberty in circumstances in which they are placed by the State in a limited place from which they are not free to leave. It is accepted by both parties on facts which are agreed that this was the position in the case of KW and that the learned judge also erred in holding that KW might soon not have the ability to walk or leave home on her own.”

That’s right, everyone involved in the case (except Mostyn J) wrote to the Court of Appeal saying that they thought Mostyn J had got it wrong and agreeing that there HAD been a deprivation of liberty and that the Court should authorise it.

The case then came back before Mostyn J, hence this judgment and hence this piece. I would imagine that the advocates did not have the most peaceful of sleep the night before that particular hearing.

Mostyn J did not take this terribly well.

He questioned whether the Court of Appeal had jurisdiction to make such a decision on a consent basis without actually hearing from the parties.  He has a point here, I think, it must be very unusual. Even in cases where everyone is agreed that a mistake has been made, there is usually a judgment given.

  1. CPR 52.11(3) provides:

    “The appeal court will allow an appeal where the decision of the lower court was –

    (a) wrong; or

    (b) unjust because of a serious procedural or other irregularity in the proceedings in the lower court.”

  2. CPR PD52A para 6.4 provides for a very limited derogation from this simple and necessary rule. It is headed “SECTION VI – DISPOSING OF APPLICATIONS AND APPEALS BY CONSENT” and provides:

    “Allowing unopposed appeals or applications on paper

    6.4 The appeal court will not normally make an order allowing an appeal unless satisfied that the decision of the lower court was wrong or unjust because of a serious procedural or other irregularity. The appeal court may, however, set aside or vary the order of the lower court by consent and without determining the merits of the appeal if it is satisfied that there are good and sufficient reasons for so doing. Where the appeal court is requested by all parties to allow an application or an appeal the court may consider the request on the papers. The request should set out the relevant history of the proceedings and the matters relied on as justifying the order and be accompanied by a draft order.”

  3. It can be seen that the strict terms of CPR 52.11(3) are modified by the deployment of the adverb “normally” in the first sentence. In the second sentence the sole exception to the primary rule is spelt out. An appeal may be allowed by consent “without determining the merits of the appeal if it is satisfied that there are good and sufficient reasons for so doing”. Therefore it follows that this procedure, which involves a determination on the papers and without an oral hearing, cannot be used to determine an appeal on the merits.
  4. One can see the need for this provision. Following the first instance decision there may have been a change in the law deriving from legislation or a binding decision of a higher court. In such a case it would be necessary to set aside the original decision without a determination on the merits. Similarly, a procedural order may require to be set aside without a determination on the merits because of a change of circumstances or a mistake. It is impossible to see however how this procedure could be used to overthrow on the merits the central basis of a first instance decision particularly where that involved a clear statement of legal principle in relation to the facts as found.
  5. My limited researches in the field of family law reveal that where a merits based decision has been reached at first instance, which all parties agree should be set aside on appeal, then there is a hearing and a judgment. This is consistent with the only reasonable interpretation of para 6.4. The judge whose decision is being impugned is surely entitled to no less, and there is a plain need to expose error so that later legal confusion does not arise. Thus in Bokor-Ingram v Bokor-Ingram [2009] EWCA Civ 412 Thorpe LJ held as follows:

    “1. In a judgement handed down on 23 June 2008, Charles J dismissed an application brought by the wife to set aside a consent order reached on 20 July 2006 at an FDR appointment determining her claims for ancillary relief for herself and the two children of the family.

    2. Charles J dismissed the wife’s application and refused her permission to appeal. Her application for permission was renewed to this court by a Notice of Appeal dated 7 August 2008. Wilson LJ granted permission to appeal on 30 October 2008, and that appeal was listed for hearing today and tomorrow, 4 and 5 March 2009.

    3. At the outset Mr Martin Pointer QC and Mr Jonathan Cohen QC, representing respectively the wife and the husband, informed the court that the parties had reached a comprehensive agreement to settle not only the appeal but also pending or prospective applications for the variation of the order of 20 July 2006.

    4. The agreement reached between the parties invited the court to allow the appeal, set aside the order of 20 July 2006, and to make revised orders on the wife’s applications.

    5. A short disposal might have followed but for our concern that the judgment below had already been reported at [2008] 2 FCR 527 and at [2009] 1 FLR 2001 and was causing, or was likely to cause, difficulty for specialist practitioners and judges in this field of ancillary relief.”

    Thorpe LJ then went on to give a full judgment explaining why Charles J had fallen into error.

  6. Similarly, in the recent decision of Re S-W (Children) [2015] EWCA Civ 27 it was recorded at para 4 that:

    “Neither Liverpool City Council nor the children’s guardian seeks to uphold the orders made. All parties are therefore agreed that the appeal should be allowed and that the matter should be remitted to Her Honour Judge de Haas QC, the Designated Family Judge for Liverpool.”

  7. Three full judgments followed explaining why Judge Dodds had fallen into error. Again, this was the least he could have expected and a reasoned judgment would have the effect of preventing similar mistakes in the future.
  8. The reason why in neither of these cases the Court of Appeal exercised its powers to deal with the appeal on paper, without a hearing, and by consent pursuant to para 6.4 was that in each instance it involved a determination on the merits that the judge was wrong. Therefore in each case the circumstances fell outside para 6.4.
  9. The researches of counsel, undertaken after argument was concluded before me but before this judgment was handed down, have not revealed any case where a fully reasoned decision has been overturned on the merits by consent and without a judgment. This is not surprising.

In this case the appeal was against para 6 of my order, which reflected the terms of my judgment, that the package of care provided to Katherine does not amount to a deprivation of liberty within the terms of Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights. That was the centrally, if not the only, relevant component of my judgment. It was its very ratio decidendi. By para 1 of the Court of Appeal order the appeal is allowed. That is plainly a determination on the merits. It could not be anything else. But such a determination on the merits does not fall within para 6.4.

I do rather agree with Mostyn J here. Whilst I respectfully think that he was wrong at first instance, he was wrong in a way that several very senior Judges (including two members of the Supreme Court) have agreed with.  It would have been helpful to have this issue put to bed. I happen to think that the Supreme Court have already done it, but as there appears to be judicial doubt, better to have that cleared up.

 

I also think that even if one accepts that Mostyn J was wrong and that KW’s liberty HAD been deprived, it is then a leap for the parties to agree an order between themselves that the Court of Appeal authorise such deprivation as being in KW’s best interests when frankly that particular argument has not been fully ventilated and litigated because the trial Judge ruled that on the facts he did not consider that she HAD been deprived of her liberty.

 

Where does that leave KW then?

  1. Even though the Court of Appeal appears to have taken a procedurally impermissible route, the rule of law depends on first instance judges complying scrupulously with decisions and orders from appellate courts. And so I must here, even if I happen to think that the order of the Court of Appeal is ultra vires. The allowing of the appeal should be construed as setting aside para 6 of my order, even if it does not actually say so. But does the order replace it with a declaration that Katherine is being deprived of her liberty? It does not explicitly say so, which is highly surprising. Further, para 2 of the order is phrased in highly ambiguous language. It says “to the extent that the restrictions in place pursuant to the care plan are a deprivation of KW’s liberty, such deprivation of KW’s liberty is hereby authorised.” The use of this conditional language suggests to me that Court of Appeal has not actually decided that this is a situation of state detention. What they are saying that if it is then it is authorised. In my judgment para 2 of the order does not amount to a declaration that Katherine is being deprived of her liberty.
  2. It therefore seems to me that we are back to square one with no-one knowing whether Katherine is, or is not, being detained by the state within the terms of Article 5. That issue will have to be decided at the next review hearing whether it is held under paras 3, 4 or 5 of the Court of Appeal order. Pursuant to para 6 I now direct that any review hearing will be conducted by me at an oral hearing and on the basis of full fresh evidence concerning Katherine’s circumstances. Until then Katherine’s status must be regarded as being in limbo.
  3. For the avoidance of any doubt it is my finding that the hearing ordered by para 5 of the Court of Appeal order is not a review of a determined situation of state detention but is, rather, a hearing de novo to determine if one exists.

 

Mostyn J goes further – having said that there has NOT been a decision that KW is being deprived of her liberty and there would have to be a hearing if anyone invites the Court to make such a finding, he goes on to drop this remarkable bombshell

  1. Further, it is my ruling that a hearing under paras 3 or 4 can only be triggered if the restrictive changes proposed amount to bodily restraint comparable to that which obtained in P v Cheshire West and Chester Council. Any restrictions short of that will amount to no more than arrangements for her care in her own home and would not, consistently with my previous judgments, amount to state detention. Therefore, in such circumstances there would be nothing to review under paras 3 and 4.
  2. It will be apparent from what I have written above that in the absence of a reasoned judgment from the Court of Appeal explaining why I was wrong I maintain firmly the correctness of my jurisprudential analysis in my principal decision as augmented in my Tower Hamlets decision. In this difficult and sensitive area, where people are being looked after in their own homes at the state’s expense, the law is now in a state of serious confusion.

 

So we seem to be in a position where if you go before Mostyn J, Rochdale v KW 2014 is good law, but if you go before another Judge, it may not be considered that way. The Court of Appeal sanctioned an order which had the effect of overturning the decision in Rochdale, but Mostyn J has ruled that it did not actually rule on the principle or the interpretation of the law.

That’s not really the way that precedent works. There are quite a few precedents that I don’t agree with and where I think the law has got it wrong, but it is the law and has to be followed until it is overturned or refined.  You have to be able to pick up a piece of case law and know whether it is a precedent which others may follow or if it is not. (Yes, sometimes, like H&R or even Cheshire West at CoA stage, the precedent which everyone follows is later determined to be wrong, but we all knew that those cases were being appealed)

The legal status of the principle in Rochdale v KW 2014 is not at all clear to me any longer. Mostyn J makes a compelling argument here that it remains binding on any Judge who is less senior than a High Court Judge. Equally, we know that the orders made did not stand following an appeal to the Court of Appeal. Is it law, or isn’t it?

We can’t surely have law that applies if you are before X Judge but not before Y Judge.

 

[I hope that I’ve been plain that whilst I disagreed with Mostyn J’s original call, I think he was right that there was a sufficient element of doubt that the Court of Appeal ought to have properly considered it and ruled on it. This was a decision that did not only affect the parties, but had a degree of public interest. It should not have been carved up by the parties, even if I think they were correct that the Judge had fallen into error on thinking the case could be distinguished from the principles in Cheshire West]

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Have we just given up on the notion of the Supreme Court being supreme?

Posted on November 20, 2014 by suesspiciousminds

 

After yesterday’s CM v Blackburn in which the Court of Appeal sidle up to the notion that the Supreme Court weren’t formulating new law in Re B, we now have the High Court in the form of Mostyn J just outright quibbling with their decision in Cheshire West.

 

In Rochdale v KW 2014 http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCOP/2014/45.html

 

Mostyn J was sitting in the Court of Protection and was faced with an application as to whether KW’s liberty was being deprived and if so ought the Court to sanction it.

  1. Katherine is aged 52. She is severely mentally incapacitated, to use the new language of the MCA; she is of “unsound mind” to use the old language of Article 5. She suffered brain damage while undergoing surgery to correct arteriovenous malformation in 1996[1], when aged only 34. This resulted in a subarachnoid haemorrhage and long term brain damage. She was left with cognitive and mental health problems, epilepsy and physical disability. She was discharged from hospital into a rehabilitation unit and thence to her own home, a bungalow in Middleton, with 24/7 support.
  2. In April 2013 Katherine was admitted to hospital. Her mental health had declined. In May 2013 she was transferred to a psychiatric ward, and later to another hospital. On 28 June 2013 she was discharged and transferred to a care home where she stayed until 14 April 2014, when she returned home. For appreciable periods between 28 June 2013 and 14 April 2014 Katherine’s confinement to the care home was not authorised under the terms of the MCA. On 26 June 2014 Katherine, acting by her litigation friend, made a claim for damages under Articles 5 and 8 of the Convention. On any view she had suffered an unlawful deprivation of liberty during those periods when her confinement was not authorised under the MCA. Her claim has been settled with modest compensation and a written apology. I approve the terms of the settlement.
  3. Physically, Katherine is just ambulant with the use of a wheeled Zimmer frame. Mentally, she is trapped in the past. She believes it is 1996 and that she is living at her old home with her three small children (who are now all adult). Her delusions are very powerful and she has a tendency to try to wander off in order to find her small children. Her present home is held under a tenancy from a Housing Association. The arrangement entails the presence of carers 24/7. They attend to her every need in an effort to make her life as normal as possible. If she tries to wander off she will be brought back. The weekly cost of the arrangement is £1,468.04. Of this £932.52 is paid by Rochdale and £535.52 by the local NHS Clinical Commissioning Group (“CCG”).

 

We have here therefore

(a) a person who lacks capacity

(b) a person who is being cared for by the State  (albeit in the setting of a foster ‘home’ rather than in residential care)

(c) a person who tries to leave that accommodation and when she tries is prevented from doing so, and if she gets out is brought back

 

On the basis of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Cheshire West, this appears to be a deprivation of liberty, but Mostyn J felt otherwise.

I find it impossible to conceive that the best interests arrangement for Katherine, in her own home, provided by an independent contractor, but devised and paid for by Rochdale and CCG, amounts to a deprivation of liberty within Article 5. If her family had money and had devised and paid for the very same arrangement this could not be a situation of deprivation of liberty. But because they are devised and paid for by organs of the state they are said so to be, and the whole panoply of authorisation and review required by Article 5 (and its explications) is brought into play. In my opinion this is arbitrary, arguably irrational, and a league away from the intentions of the framers of the Convention.

 

Mostyn J goes on to conduct a philosophical exercise on the nature of liberty  (I can highly recommend Alex Ruck’s blog on the judgment – he says everything that I wanted to say, and far more elegantly http://www.mentalcapacitylawandpolicy.org.uk/js-mill-strikes-back-mostyn-j-takes-on-the-supreme-court/)

 

It is plain that Mostyn J is aware that he is bound by Cheshire West, although making it plain that he doesn’t himself agree with the Supreme Court, but he attempts to distinguish the case (in ways that frankly, one might consider the Supreme Court had already ruled on), concluding that this particular issue needs to be looked at again by the Supreme Court and granting leave to appeal in order to facilitate that.

  1. The opinions of the majority are binding on me and I must loyally follow them even if I personally agree with the view of Parker J and the Court of Appeal in MIG and MEG; with the Court of Appeal in Cheshire West; and with the minority in the Supreme Court[2]. There is a similarity between this case and that of MIG inasmuch as both involve so called constraints on an incapacitated person living at home. In determining the factual question I cannot take into account the benign motives of Rochdale in providing the care arrangement or of Katherine’s contentment with it. Nor can I take into account the designed normality of the arrangement in Katherine’s own home.
  2. As I have shown, a key element of the objective test of confinement is whether the person is “free to leave”. This is part of the acid test. “Free to leave” does not just mean wandering out of the front door. It means “leaving in the sense of removing [herself] permanently in order to live where and with whom [she] chooses” (see JE v DE and Surrey County Council [2006] EWHC 3459 (Fam)[2007] 2 FLR 1150 per Munby J at para 115, implicitly approved in the Supreme Court at para 40). This is the required sense of the second part of the acid test.
  3. I do not find the test of the Strasbourg court in HL v United Kingdom 40 EHRR 761, at para 91, where it refers to the “concrete situation” of the protected person, as being of much assistance. The adjective “concrete” means that that I should look for an actual substance or thing rather than for an abstract quality. That is to state the obvious. Plainly, I will be looking only at Katherine’s actual personal circumstances and not at any abstractions.
  4. Katherine’s ambulatory functions are very poor and are deteriorating. Soon she may not have the motor skills to walk even with her frame. If she becomes house-bound or bed-ridden it must follow that her deprivation of liberty just dissolves. It is often said that one stress-tests a proposition with some more extreme facts. Imagine a man in hospital in a coma. Imagine that such a man has no relations demanding to take him away. Literally, he is not “free to leave”. Literally, he is under continuous supervision. Is he in a situation of deprivation of liberty? Surely not. So if Katherine cannot realistically leave in the sense described above then it must follow that the second part of the acid test is not satisfied.
  5. By contrast MIG was a young woman with full motor functions, notwithstanding her problems with her sight and hearing. She had the physical capacity to leave in the sense described. She had sufficient mental capacity to make the decision to leave, in the sense described. If she tried she would be stopped. Therefore, it can be seen that in her case both parts of the acid test was satisfied.
  6. In my judgment there is a very great difference between the underlying facts of MIG’s case and of this case notwithstanding that in both cases the protected person lives at home.
  7. It is my primary factual finding that in Katherine’s case the second part of the acid test is not satisfied. She is not in any realistic way being constrained from exercising the freedom to leave, in the required sense, for the essential reason that she does not have the physical or mental ability to exercise that freedom.
  8. I am not suggesting, of course, that it is impossible for a person ever to be deprived of his liberty by confinement in his or her own home. In the field of criminal law this happens all the time. Bail conditions, or the terms of a release from prison on licence, routinely provide for this. However, I am of the view that for the plenitude of cases such as this, where a person, often elderly, who is both physically and mentally disabled to a severe extent, is being looked after in her own home, and where the arrangements happen to be made, and paid for, by a local authority, rather than by the person’s own family and paid for from her own funds, or from funds provided by members of her family[3], Article 5 is simply not engaged.

 

 

For me, Alex Ruck puts it perfectly in his analysis

 

Mostyn J’s conception of freedom to leave is fundamentally predicated upon a concept that of liberty that is dependent upon a person’s ability to exercise that right, either themselves or by another. A person who is severely physically disabled – and therefore house-bound – could not, on Mostyn J’s analysis, be considered to be deprived of their liberty. It is, however, extremely difficult to square that analysis with the conclusion of Lady Hale (with whom Lord Kerr agreed) that liberty must mean the same for all, regardless of whether they are mentally or physically disabled (see the discussion at paragraphs 33-36).

 

We are once again getting back to a conflation of two questions – whether someone is deprived of their liberty, with whether it is justified. Katherine’s circumstances almost certainly make any deprivation justifiable, but to say that her liberty is not deprived as a result of her physical and mental difficulties is at right angles to the decision of the Supreme Court in Cheshire West.

 

We shall see what they say, if the case finally gets to them, but given how long we waited for Cheshire West to be resolved, the prospect of further doubt in this area is not appealing.

{I myself like to ‘stress-test’ deprivation of liberty cases by looking back to L and Bournewood – I’m not sure L would be helped by this sort of formulation}

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Cheshire West fallout

Posted on October 7, 2014 by suesspiciousminds

There’s an excellent piece of investigative work by Community Care about the escalation in the number of Deprivation of Liberty cases since the Supreme Court made a substantial change to the law in Cheshire West.

 

If you have a chance to read the full thing, I heartily recommend it.  (the remainder of this article is my extraction and citation of what I considered to be the main issues)

http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2014/10/01/50-deprivation-liberty-safeguards-cases-breaching-legal-timescales/

 

Half of Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (Dols) cases are breaching legal timescales for completion after a landmark Supreme Court ruling in March triggered a nine-fold rise in monthly referrals to councils, a Community Care investigation has found

 

In 2013-14 councils received 8,455 requests for Dols assessments; since April this year they’ve already had 32,988 referrals. The figures mean average monthly referrals have risen from 713 in 2013-14 to 6,643 in 2014-15. The effect of the dramatic rise in cases is clear. Last year 2.2% of cases breached timescales; so far this year 50% of cases were not completed in time.

 

Councils have also seen more legal challenges to deprivations of liberty and one local authority has sent a ‘systemic abuse alert’ to an adult safeguarding board warning that it could not meet the ‘Supreme Court challenge’ due to a shortage of resources.

 

 

The court ruling has also intensified a shortage of best interests assessors (BIAs), whose role is to determine whether a person is, or will be, deprived of their liberty and, if so, and whether this is in the person’s best interests. Councils are scrambling to train up more social workers as BIAs in a bid to boost assessor numbers, but many training courses are oversubscribed and, even if a place is secured, training can take months.

 

We found that the shortage of trained staff in councils means local authorities have already spent £1.4m on independent BIAs in 2014-15. That’s almost three times the £550,000 spent across 12 months in 2013-14.

 

 

  • Legal challenges are rising: In the first five months of 2014-15 local authorities had 61 legal challenges brought over deprivation of liberty cases. In the 12 months of 2013-14 the councils had received a total of 49 legal challenges.

 

  • Safeguarding concerns have been raised: Cornwall council raised a ‘systemic abuse’ alert with the local safeguarding adults board over the council’s inability to safeguard people under Dols, due to a lack of resources to meet the post ‘Supreme Court challenge’. The council said it wanted to ensure there was independent scrutiny of its response to the judgement. The councils said its “principal difficulty is one of resources and the availability of suitably trained staff to implement the DoLS for the greatly increased numbers. The council referred its concerns into the adult safeguarding process while it took urgent steps to address problem.”

 

  • Stacks of referrals have been held back: Evidence from council reports shows that the referrals received so far are only likely to be a fraction of those that could meet the Supreme Court test as care homes and hospitals are delaying applications. In some cases, council reports say this is due to them ‘ignoring’ or not understanding the implication of the Supreme Court judgement. In other cases it is deliberate:

◦We found one example of a council agreeing with a care provider to delay sending in 30 referrals to help with ‘backlog avoidance’.

◦In a second case, a council report showed that some homes had delayed in sending in referrals as they were ‘sympathetic’ to the pressures on the local authority. In the report, the council’s Dols lead said that this was often happening ‘to the detriment’ of the person. The report shows that the Dols lead contacted the homes and told them to make the applications.

◦A third council report we obtained showed that a local acute hospital had still to send in applications. The hospital had conducted an initial scoping exercise and identified a potential 35,000 referrals. This alone would lead to the Dols team facing a 350-fold increase in cases, the report showed.

 

Bloody hell.

 

Information drawn from the Health and Social Care Information Centre  from 130 of 152 councils make the point even more vividly. http://www.hscic.gov.uk/catalogue/PUB15475

A 600% increase in monthly referrals is a terrifying amount. There is simply no way that social workers, local authority lawyers, best interest assessors, lawyers for families, the Official Solicitor or the Courts can cope with that sort of increase.

 

The councils received 21,600 Dols applications from April to June 2014, compared with 12,400 in the whole of 2013-14, a 597% increase in monthly referrals;

  • of these, 51% were authorised, 12% were not authorised, and 36% had not been withdrawn or not signed off by the council as of September 2014.

 

(I’m really impressed with the work that Community Care have done on this, and I hope that everyone in the field reads their piece, hence my bigging it up here)

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