What are my rights if I have a DoLS authorisation?

In order for a DoLS authorisation to be put in place, we must consider that, under the code of practice, you need to be in a care home or hospital for the following reasons.

• You lack the mental capacity to make your own decision about staying in a care home or hospital to receive care or treatment.
  
  
• You have a mental disorder or a learning disability.
  
  
• You have not already made a decision to refuse the treatment you are receiving (if relevant) and there is no personal welfare lasting power of attorney or court-appointed deputy (someone appointed by the Court of Protection to act on your behalf) who objects to you being in the care home or hospital.
  
  
• You need restrictions to be in place so that you get the care or treatment you need. These restrictions are in your best interests, and they are necessary to prevent harm to you. The restrictions in place are proportionate to the level of harm they aim to prevent.
  
  
• It is in your best interests to be living in the care home or hospital at the moment.

You have the following rights if you have a DoLS authorisation.

• You can have a representative to support you. Your representative will explain to you all about the DoLS authorisation. You can choose your representative before a DoLS authorisation is needed, and it could be a member of your family or a friend. If you haven’t already chosen a representative when the authorisation is put in place, we will arrange one for you. Your representative will visit you and check you are looked after in a way that means you are safe. They will be named in the authorisation.
  
  
• You can ask for a review. If you are not happy about the DoLS authorisation, or you think the BIA got some things wrong in their report, you can ask for a review to make sure you are being treated
  in the right way.
  
  
• You can ask us about any conditions in the DoLS authorisation. These are things the care home or hospital have to do or change. If you do not think the care home or hospital is meeting the conditions, you should tell the care home or hospital, or your representative. You can also tell us, or you can ask the Court of Protection to help you.
  
  
• You can ask for a special kind of advocate. If you or your representative needs help to challenge the decision to put the DoLS authorisation in place, you can ask for an independent mental capacity advocate to help with this.
  
  
•  Your representative or the hospital or care home can also ask for a review. They may want to do this because something has changed since the assessments were carried out.
  
  
• If you or your representative still disagrees about you being deprived of your liberty, you can ask the Court of Protection to decide whether or not this should happen. You will not usually have to pay for this. An independent mental capacity advocate can also help you.
  
  
• You can contact our Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards Team (see the contact details below). We will always listen to your point of view and sort out any disagreement informally if we can.

Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) Team

Phone: 0330 222 3691
Calls using Relay UK: 18001 0330 222 3691
(for deaf callers from a textphone or the NGT Lite app downloaded onto a computer, tablet or smartphone)
Email: dols@westsussex.gov.uk