Council breaches legal time scales for completion of Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards cases

I suppose this extract means that £1000s will be spent on agency staff?

A sum of money has been allocated to pay for a number of employees to be trained as best interest assessors and extra staff have been brought in to help clear the backlog as quickly as possible

Sad that Steve Blezard, Assistant Director of Adult Care at Rochdale Council had to comment about this, where is the Director? He/she gets paid the big bucks so should be accountable.

Is the Director accountable for this failure? It must have surely come as no surprise that the new rules came in, don't we pay good wages to them to keep abreast of these things.

The deprivision of liberty, in other words imprisonment, of the elderly and ill is of course an extremely serious matter.

To be deprived of liberty is considered an extreme punishment, for criminals.

As stated in the House of Lords, at the moment, thousands of elderly and disabled people are being locked up without proper legal process.

http://www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/2/news-headlines/92312/council-breaches-legal-time-scales-for-completion-of-deprivation-of-liberty-safeguards-cases

So yes, it wants sorting out as quick as can be. Bringing in and trying to quickly train extra staff in complex medical and legal matters of such importance and consequence does look rather haphazard.

This is a minefield.

An almost impossible task. Fraught with adverse opinion and relies heavily on raison d'etre.

At what line is the 'line' crossed? On how many opinions and by what criteria?

You are entering the world of 'mental health'.

Not for the amateur or the college degree and 'aren't I wonderful artists'.

Yes, a legal and medical minefield of decisions, including about the mentally ill who may or may not be safe to release. You would hope R.M.B.C. would be able to keep up with the paperwork.

That depends upon which mental defectives are doing it??????