{"id":617334,"date":"2026-06-02T16:58:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T16:58:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/617334\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T16:58:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T16:58:14","slug":"supreme-court-disabled-people-can-now-consent-to-care-arrangements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/617334\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court: Disabled people can now consent to care arrangements"},"content":{"rendered":"

The court ruled that lack of legal capacity is not the same as lack of “valid consent” for the purposes of Article 5 of the Human Rights Act.<\/p>\n

It said some people who cannot make a legally recognised decision about where they live may still be able to consent, in convention terms, if they have enough awareness to understand their arrangements and express whether they are content with them.<\/p>\n

The ruling, which will also be applied in England, Wales, and Scotland, as well as Northern Ireland, has said that a multifactorial approach will now be used in determining whether someone is deprived of their liberty, external<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Significantly a person’s own wishes and preferences will be taken into consideration, however, unless they indicate an objection, it’s unlikely that their living arrangements will be considered a deprivation of liberty.<\/p>\n

It could potentially prove challenging for those in charge of providing care, as the court has acknowledged that people’s ability to express their attitude towards their care arrangement will vary from case to case.<\/p>\n

Northern Ireland’s health minister now has the legal power to revise the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards code of practice, which oversees care arrangements for people without sufficient mental capacity.<\/p>\n

In simple terms, campaigners say the ruling means the law will now class fewer people as being deprived of their liberty and if fewer people fall into that category, fewer people will automatically get the legal checks and protections that used to follow.<\/p>\n

That could ease pressure on an overstretched Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) system, but campaigners say it does so by narrowing who gets protected in the first place. <\/p>\n

They warn that disabled people in locked or highly restrictive care settings may now find it harder to get independent oversight or challenge what is happening to them.<\/p>\n

The next big question is how quickly ministers respond.<\/p>\n

The government had already said it planned to consult on replacing DoLS with Liberty Protection Safeguards, and campaigners now say interim guidance is needed urgently to stop confusion and protect people affected by the judgment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The court ruled that lack of legal capacity is not the same as lack of “valid consent” for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":617335,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-617334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=617334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}