Mental Capacity Act and DoLS Training: What UK Care Staff Need to Know

If a person in your care cannot make a decision for themselves and their freedom is restricted as a result — they cannot leave a care home, say, or a door is locked to keep them safe — the law does not treat that as a routine care decision. It treats it as a deprivation of liberty, and deprivation of liberty without proper legal authorisation is unlawful, however good the intentions behind it. That is the starting point for every health and social care worker who supports people who may lack capacity, and it is why the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) and the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) sit at the centre of so many CQC and CIW inspections.

This is one of the trickier corners of UK compliance to keep current, partly because the underlying law has genuinely moved in 2026, and partly because the promised reform — the Liberty Protection Safeguards (LPS) — has been delayed so many times that staff can be forgiven for tuning it out. Our UK guide to healthcare compliance and CPD training covers the wider regulatory picture; this article goes deeper into the MCA and DoLS specifically — what the law requires, what has just changed, and what inspectors want to see in your training records.

The five statutory principles of the Mental Capacity Act

The MCA 2005 applies to anyone aged 16 or over in England and Wales who may, for some decisions and at some points, lack the mental capacity to decide things for themselves. It is built around five statutory principles, and every member of staff who supports adults who might lack capacity should be able to explain them in plain language, not just recite them.

• A person must be assumed to have capacity unless it is established that they lack it. Capacity is never assumed absent simply because someone has a diagnosis, a learning disability, or dementia.
• A person must be given all practicable help to make their own decision before anyone treats them as unable to do so — pictures, simpler language, a different time of day, or a trusted person in the room can all count.
• An unwise decision does not mean a lack of capacity. People are allowed to make choices that staff, family or professionals disagree with.
• Anything done for or on behalf of a person who lacks capacity must be in their best interests, following a proper best interests process that consults the person and the people who know them.
• Any restriction of a person's rights and freedom must be the least restrictive option available that still achieves the purpose.

Capacity itself is assessed with a two-stage test: first, whether the person has an impairment or disturbance in the functioning of the mind or brain; second, whether that impairment means they cannot understand, retain, use or weigh the relevant information, or communicate their decision. Capacity is decision-specific and time-specific — someone can lack capacity to manage their finances while retaining capacity to decide what to eat for lunch, and it can change from day to day.

DoLS in practice: when it applies and how authorisation works

DoLS exists to authorise a deprivation of liberty in a care home or hospital when someone lacks capacity to consent to their care arrangements and those arrangements amount, in law, to a deprivation of liberty. The care home or hospital (the "managing authority") applies to the relevant local authority (the "supervisory body") for authorisation, and statutory assessments — including mental capacity and best interests assessments — must be completed before a standard authorisation, valid for up to twelve months, can be granted. An urgent authorisation can cover a short period while a standard authorisation is sought.

For years, whether a situation counted as a deprivation of liberty at all was judged against the "acid test" from the 2014 Supreme Court case Cheshire West: was the person under continuous supervision and control, and free to leave? If both applied, it was almost always treated as a deprivation of liberty, regardless of setting. That test has now changed. In June 2026, the Supreme Court handed down judgment in A Reference by the Attorney General for Northern Ireland ([2026] UKSC 16), unanimously overruling Cheshire West. It replaced the single "acid test" with a multifactorial assessment of the person's concrete situation — the type, duration, effects and manner of any restriction, and whether the person has given valid consent, which the judgment says can include someone who lacks legal capacity but understands and appears content with their situation. Official guidance and local authority practice are still catching up, so expect this area to keep moving. DoLS itself remains the framework in force in England and Wales at the time of writing — the authorisation process hasn't been abolished — but the underlying test for whether a deprivation of liberty exists has genuinely changed, and training content written before mid-2026 may already be out of date.

Liberty Protection Safeguards: reform status, stated cautiously

The Liberty Protection Safeguards were introduced in the Mental Capacity (Amendment) Act 2019 as the intended replacement for DoLS, designed to extend safeguards to a wider range of settings — including supported living and people's own homes — and to reduce a well-documented backlog of DoLS cases. LPS has never come into force; implementation was pushed back repeatedly and was described by government as delayed indefinitely in 2023.

The position has shifted again more recently: in October 2025 the Department of Health and Social Care announced a joint consultation with the Ministry of Justice on the future of LPS, originally trailed for the first half of 2026, with responses expected to feed into a revised Mental Capacity Act Code of Practice. As of now, that consultation has not been confirmed as launched, and no implementation date or timetable for LPS has been published. Given how many times this reform has slipped, treat any date quoted elsewhere with caution and check gov.uk directly before repeating it in policy or training materials. The safest working assumption for training purposes: DoLS is the law that currently applies, LPS is not yet in force, and the position is worth checking again before your next scheduled refresher.

What CQC (and CIW) expect to see in staff training records

CQC does not simply ask whether MCA and DoLS training has been booked. Inspectors look for evidence that training has translated into practice: care and support plans showing a proper capacity assessment for specific decisions rather than a blanket "lacks capacity" label; documented best interests decisions showing who was consulted and why a particular option was chosen as the least restrictive; a functioning system for identifying when a DoLS application is needed and tracking authorisations that are outstanding or expiring; and staff who, in conversation with an inspector, can explain the five principles and describe what they'd do if they suspected someone was being deprived of their liberty without authorisation. A training matrix showing everyone completed a course two years ago rarely satisfies this on its own — CQC wants current knowledge, applied consistently, and refreshed often enough to reflect changes in the law such as the 2026 Supreme Court ruling. Our guide to CQC inspections and staff training covers how inspectors evidence training compliance more broadly, including what "good" looks like in a training file.

In Wales, Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW) plays the equivalent role. The MCA and DoLS apply across England and Wales, so the underlying legal duties are the same, though CIW's inspection framework and terminology differ from CQC's — Welsh providers should check CIW's own guidance rather than assume an England-focused checklist transfers directly. Scotland and Northern Ireland operate under separate legal frameworks (the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000 and Northern Ireland's Mental Capacity Act 2016), so the training described here is specific to England and Wales.

Keeping your team's training current

Given how much has moved in this area during 2026 alone — a Supreme Court judgment that changes the legal test for deprivation of liberty, and a still-pending consultation that could eventually replace DoLS altogether — MCA and DoLS training isn't something to complete once and file away. It needs revisiting whenever the law shifts, not just on a fixed annual cycle. Learnsignal's CPD and compliance training programmes are kept up to date as the legal and regulatory picture changes, so your team's certificates reflect the law as it currently stands rather than as it stood when they joined.

This article is intended as general information for care providers and staff, not legal advice. If you are making a specific capacity assessment, best interests decision, or DoLS application, or you are unsure how the 2026 Supreme Court ruling affects a particular case, seek advice from your organisation's safeguarding lead, local authority DoLS team, or a qualified legal adviser.