Mental Capacity (Amendment) Bill (HL)

(asked on 26th February 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to page four of the Impact Assessment for the Mental Capacity Amendment Bill, what methodology his Department used to calculate that the cost of authorisation and reviews by care settings at zero.


Answered by
Caroline Dinenage Portrait
Caroline Dinenage
This question was answered on 5th March 2019

The net cost of authorisations and reviews is estimated to be zero because the role for care homes under the Liberty Protection Safeguards will be similar to the role they have currently under the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards and Care Act. Care homes will not be responsible for conducting assessments in any circumstances. Where appropriate they will prepare the statement provided to the responsible body. In some cases these statements might incorporate existing valid assessments but these assessments will not have been conducted by care home staff.

0.5 days is our best estimate of how long it will take care home managers to be familiarised with their roles in the new system, assuming they are already familiar with how the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards system operates. The current Deprivation of Liberty system training can be completed in two hours. The half day training considered to be required to familiarise care home manager with the new system is additional to the support government has committed to provide to the sector ahead of implementation of the Liberty Protection Safeguards.

The comprehensive work undertaken by the Law Commission on reforming the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards system over a three-year period (2014 – 2017) estimated that approximately 1% of applications would result in an appeal to the Court of Protection. This is set out on page 34 of the Law Commissions Impact Assessment on Mental Capacity and Detention. The Bill introduces a new role of the Approved Mental Capacity Professional (AMCP). The AMCP will consider objections and provide an opportunity for resolution outside the Court of Protection. Given uncertainty, we have modelled a range of scenarios. Our central estimate is based on a reduction in the number of appeals to the Court of Protection to 0.5% of applications.

The responsibility of the Approved Mental Capacity Professional is to ensure the independence of the objection process, when an individual disagrees with their care arrangements so that individuals can exercise their right to object in confidence, they are not responsible for formal mediation but provide an opportunity for issues to be resolved outside of court. The Department is working with stakeholders and professionals to develop a Code of Practice which will assist in the implementation and transition period of the Bill.

General practitioners (GPs) and other relevant clinicians will be able to provide evidence used for the purposes of medical and capacity assessments, for example an existing diagnosis of dementia can be used for the purposes of a medical assessment. We are not expecting GPs or other professionals to undertake new functions in addition to routine practice, but rather want to use the current healthcare system and activities to support the more streamlined Liberty Protection Safeguards system through sharing of information that already exists.

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