Sometimes care homes and hospitals have to limit people’s freedom to keep them safe.
The Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) provide a legal framework that helps to ensure the person’s human rights are protected.
The DoLS are part of the Mental Capacity Act 2005. They say that people can only be deprived of their liberty when they lack mental capacity to make decisions about their care and accommodation, and it is in their best interests.
The DoLS were introduced in 2007 after a European Court of Human Rights ruling.
The ruling found that a man with autism had been unlawfully deprived of his liberty in Bournewood Hospital because the hospital had not used any legal framework to detain him. This had meant that his Carers experienced real difficulty in trying to get him released.