View source for Cornwall DOLS time study

THE CORNWALL COUNCIL ‘BIA TIME SURVEY’

Our survey link – https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/DOLS-time-survey

Currently there appears to be very little evidence about the time it takes for Best Interests Assessors (“BIA”) to complete individual assessments. The DOLS team at Cornwall Council are keen to learn more about the time it takes BIA’s to complete their assessments and any ‘time standards’ they may have to work within.

The Supreme Court's decision in Cheshire West (see Cheshire West and Chester Council v P (2014) UKSC 19, (2014) MHLO 16) brought a momentous change to practice for Best Interests Assessors (“BIA”), whose role is central in assessing for the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards ("DOLS").

With a growing number of outstanding DOLS referrals and pressures to meet those demands some local authorities are beginning to implement ‘time standards’ for BIA’s when conducting their assessments. Whilst this may be positive for case turnover there are concerns it will erode the independence of the BIA and has a direct impact on the overall quality of their assessments which require them to obtain, evaluate and analyse complex evidence and differing views and weigh them appropriately in their decision-making.

For the best results we need a large pool of respondents to ensure that the findings are transferable and hope that you can circulate this email and the survey link to teams, individual practitioners and independents and others.

The survey is aimed directly at Best Interests Assessors (“BIA”), we don’t ask for any personally identifiable information and the format of the survey is simple so it won’t take up to much time.

Survey closes 21st August. We aim to share the results and we will be posting to social media sites with a specialist interests in this area and via the DOLS lead network.

Please take our survey - https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/DOLS-time-survey

Check out some of our great press too!

http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2015/07/31/deprivation-liberty-long-bias-taking-complete-assessments/

https://thesmallplaces.wordpress.com/

Questions to:

Paul Wilkins (DOLS Lead) – pwilkins@cornwall.gov.uk

Emma Goodall (AMHP/BIA) – egoodall@cornwall.gov.uk

Thank you!