Liberty Protection Safeguards: Briefing Sessions, Summer 2019
The Mental Capacity (Amendment) Bill is currently (Winter 2018-19) making its way through Parliament. The purpose of the Bill is to abolish the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) and to replace them with a completely new system, provisionally called the Liberty Protection Safeguards (LPS).
The timescale is not clear yet. Our best guess - and it is only a guess - is that the Bill may be passed during Spring 2019, so that the LPS can be implemented by Spring 2020. You can follow the Bill's progress here.
Click here for an interview with Tim Spencer-Lane of the Law Commission, in which he outlines the main changes as of 17th December 2018. This article was first published on Lexis®PSL Private Client on 17 December 2018.
On that basis we are organising a series of Briefing Sessions in various locations around England and Wales, to be delivered by Tim Spencer-Lane. Tim is a lawyer with the Law Commission who headed their review of the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards in 2015-17. The Law Commission's full report, published in March 2017, recommended abolishing the DoLS and bringing in the new system of LPS. Recently Tim has been seconded to the Department of Health & Social Care where he has worked on the Liberty Protection Safeguards.
Many of you will have attended one of the Briefing Sessions which Tim delivered for us in the Summer of 2017. The sessions in 2019 will follow a similar format (ie morning and afternoon sessions at each venue) where Tim will outline in detail how the new system is intended to work. And once again there will be plenty of opportunities for questions and clarifications.
Of course, because we are not certain of the timescale, we can only make provisional plans. We cannot take any bookings until the Bill has been passed, and the implementation date is known for sure. But we hope that the schedule below will give you the chance at least to "save the date".
If the Bill is not passed by Spring 2019, then we will have to postpone the early dates and reschedule them for later in the year.
We will let you know by email as soon as the Bill is passed. Please use the "Sign up to our email newsletter" panel at the bottom of this page to make sure we have your email address. And if you have downloaded our free app then please allow "push" notifications, as we will also use that method of communication.
The locations
- North West (Widnes)
- East London (Romford)
- South West (Newton Abbott)
- East Midlands (Nottingham)
- East Anglia (Dereham)
- South Coast (Southampton)
- West London (Ealing)
- South Wales (Cardiff)
- North East (York)
- West Midlands (Birmingham)
We have tried to spread the locations around England and Wales so that everyone has one within reasonable travelling distance.
The dates
We expect demand to be high, so please do reserve your place as soon as they go on sale.
Places will be £60.00 plus VAT per person. You will be able to pay by Paypal, credit/debit card, internet banking or cheque. Or if you prefer we can send you an invoice.