It is vital to have mechanisms to ensure that arrangements made for people who lack capacity are in their best interests.
It is also important that resources are, as far as possible, directed to care rather than to legal and bureaucratic processes.
The Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) scheme safeguards against the arbitrary deprivation of liberty of people who lack capacity to consent to their care or treatment, such as people living with dementia, people with autism and people with learning disabilities, providing legal authorisation for depriving a person of their liberty in a care home or hospital setting.
However, there is widespread consensus that the scheme is broken.
Government response