The SKWAWKBOX reported this week on the shocking tripling of deaths – from 83 in 2011 to 252 in 2016 – among people detained under the Mental Health Act, as mental health and police services have been degraded under Tory government.
A further shocking phenomenon is revealed by the government’s Coroners’ Statistics: an increase of fifty-six percent in the number of deaths under ‘Deprivation of Liberty’ (DoL) authorisations.
The Mental Capacity Act (MCA) allows for organisations – hospitals, care homes and others – to apply for authorisation to deprive or restrict a person’s liberty on the grounds of their mental capacity if it is considered necessary for their safety. ‘Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards‘ (DoLS) exist to ensure – in theory – that a person is not unnecessarily deprived of any more of their liberty than is absolutely necessary for their safety. These only apply in England and Wales.
One of the key reasons for a DoL is dementia in its various forms. If a person can’t remember where they live, for example, a home would need to prevent them from leaving the facility unaccompanied or might need to restrict their access to the kitchen if they may forget to turn off an appliance.
DoL authorisations are also linked to the resources of the organisation applying for them. As a simple example, facility with enough people to provide one-to-one care around the clock would have less need to deprive an individual of liberty than one in which a staff member is looking after twenty residents or patients.
In 2015, the first year in which the figures were recorded, 7,183 people died while under DoL authorisations. In 2016, that number soared to 11,376.
In a small part, this is explained by an increase in the number of applications for DoL. But this only rose by 11%.
Another contributing factor will be the increasing total number of people deprived of their liberty. DoL should last only as long as required, but a person with dementia may be under an order for years.
In previous years – when DoL deaths were not reported – the number of applications has rocketed, for example a 900% increase in 2014/15. In the very early years after DoLS were launched in 2009, this might be attributed to increased awareness of the process – but five years later?
The inverse link between resources and the need for DoL applications would suggest that the annual increase in DoL applications is linked to starvation of resources among the organisations providing care.
The huge increase in deaths suggests that even DoL orders may be failing to safeguard vulnerable people. Of course, statistically some people will die in any group in any year.
But the steep rise in the both total and in the deaths per thousand people detained that the statistics reveal likely reflect the ongoing under-resourcing of social care, the continuing collapse of the NHS as funding slows – and the inability of organisations to cope on ever-tighter resources, even when using more and more often the extreme measure of depriving those in their care of liberty in at attempt to keep them safe.
Comment:
The Tories’ plans to bring in the dementia tax were defeated by their failure in the General Election, but they are still extracting a toll from our elderly and vulnerable.
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this is all part of a deliberate plan to reduce the population of all those deemed ‘incapable’ by this government – the old, the poor, the disabled, the sick, the homeless, the unemployed
There is another issue here. Some local authorities have outsourced their responsibilities for Deprivation of Liberty assesssments. In some cases the contractor is part of the same corporation which is contracted to supply supervised accommodation.
This creates a corporate revenue stream whereby the contractor can deem a person as needing a Deprivation of Liberty Order, and that person has to be relocated into that same corporation’s accommodation along with the resulting council funded care fees.
The vulnerable individual has to stay in this accommodation until the corporation deems them no longer in need of the DoL safeguard.
People have been forcibly detained for years under this regime, to the distress and bewilderment of their family. While the corporate contractor has guaranteed themselves a revenue stream ending only when their client / prisoner dies.
I also wonder how DoL is being implemented in practise, in daily life, inside institutions and if that has an impact on the apparent increasing deaths?
People suffering from dementia and other conditions causing reduced mental capacity are one of the most vulnerable groups in society, health and care sectors and unless they have vocal advocates are potentially at grave risk in profit driven and under resourced systems in my opinion. Does DoL neuter good and powerful advocacy and choice?
DoL looks like the perfect way to cut costs on staffing via a legal ‘lock em up’ facility.
All the health and care sectors need good staff levels (and good training) to provide good care… there is no way round this fact.
Profit seeking has no place in delivery of health or social care. Profit seeking on top of austerity cuts is a humanitarian crisis of huge scale in the making. UK is fast becoming an uncivilized, unenlightened, cruel country under this Tory regime.
Do you have examples – records or people I could talk to?
This Govt is unfit to rule,we all know that (ok not everyone)They are still determined to wreak havoc on us all (as Ron said) Whens it all going to end??
I just hope there’ll be another GE sometime this Year I really do! I just hope JC will be able to clear up thie mess these Tories have created.
I know it’s going to be a long time consuming task,I just hope be can do it..
the nhs is killing people everyday and nobody cares
The Tories are killing people every day with their policies.
The Tories just do not care; and they don’t even care that we all know that they do not care!