In our earlier article we set out what the ruling changed and why opinion across the sector is divided. Read that first if you need the background. This piece is about the step after understanding: what to do in your own service, and what CQC will expect to see.

How the new assessment works

For more than a decade, the acid test asked two questions. Is the person under continuous supervision and control? Are they free to leave? If they were supervised and not free to leave, and lacked capacity to consent, that was usually treated as a deprivation of liberty.

The Supreme Court has replaced that single test with a multifactorial assessment. It starts with the individual's actual situation and weighs several things together, with no one factor deciding the outcome on its own:

• the type of restrictions in place, such as locked doors, supervision, physical control, sedating medication or social isolation
• how long those restrictions last
• their effect on the person
• the manner in which they are implemented
• whether the person objects
• how far the situation is from being detained in a prison cell
• the relative normality of the arrangements, recognising that greater restriction is needed at home for a deprivation to arise
• the purpose of the arrangements, for example care and protection rather than punishment or coercion

The shift is from a checklist to a judgment. That is more demanding to apply, but it is closer to how good managers already think about the people they support.

Start with the guidance, not the judgment

You do not need to read the judgment and interpret it yourself. The Department of Health and Social Care has done that work for you, and its guidance is the practical steer you should be working from. It asks providers to share an accurate summary of the ruling throughout their organisation and to upskill staff on the new definition, and to expedite that rather than wait.

One detail matters more than it looks. The judgment was handed down on 2 June and the guidance was published on 15 June. They are two different dates, and it is easy to blur them when the whole sector is talking at once. Work from the guidance, point your team at it, and treat it as the current position rather than the last word, because further guidance with worked case studies has been promised.

What it means for your existing authorisations

This is the question most managers ask first, and the guidance is candid about the direction of travel. It accepts that many people currently subject to a DoLS authorisation may now fall outside its scope. That could be because their restrictions no longer amount to a deprivation of liberty once you weigh the whole picture, or because the person is able to give valid consent through their wishes and feelings. The practical implications:

• Where someone is no longer deprived of their liberty but still has an authorisation in place, the case should be reviewed as soon as is practicable.
• Leaving that authorisation in place in the meantime does not make the deprivation unlawful, so there is room to be thorough rather than rushed.
• Where a person's circumstances change and they no longer need the level of restriction imposed, restrictions can be reduced within the existing authorisation, without a new one.
• Keep using DoLS and court applications wherever there is doubt about valid consent, where restrictions are significant, or where Article 5 may be engaged.
• Record your decision-making clearly, particularly where an authorisation is left to lapse because it no longer falls within scope.

The headline to resist is "everyone can come off DoLS." Some people will. Many will not. The judgment asks for a more careful look at each person, not a blanket clearout.

The real shift: from the restriction to the person

For years, reviews of deprivation of liberty have circled the restrictions themselves. Are the doors locked? Is the person supervised? Can they leave? Those questions still matter, but the judgment puts new weight on how the person actually experiences their support. The guidance frames the question better than any policy could: the thing to establish is how you know what this individual understands and wants, not simply whether they are compliant.

That changes the evidence you need. It is no longer enough to record that a person seems happy. The stronger entry shows it. Rather than "John appears settled," a note that earns its place reads more like: "John smiled throughout the activity, chose to stay in the garden for an extra thirty minutes, and afterwards asked if it could be repeated next week." The second version is observation rather than assumption, and it is the kind of detail that holds up when someone outside the team looks at it. Our guide to inspection-ready daily notes shows what that looks like across a record.

The same applies to objection. Some people say it plainly by asking to leave or refusing support. Others show it through withdrawal, anxiety, changes in routine or distress behaviours. The guidance is specific about forms of objection that should put you on notice, including physically pushing care away, the use of physical restraint or one-to-one care to manage behaviour, covert medication where a person objects to medication, and sedating medication used to manage behaviour where it affects the person's ability to object at all. The point is not whether objection appears in the form staff expect. It is whether staff understand how this individual communicates it.

This is also why compliance cannot be read as agreement. A person may comply because they trust staff, because they are used to the routine, or because they cannot easily communicate disagreement. Compliance is not consent, and an absence of objection, where the person is capable of objecting, is itself relevant. A quiet life is not, by itself, evidence of a contented one. Strengthening your Mental Capacity Act practice through themed supervision is one practical way to keep this understanding current.

A worked example

Consider a person who has lived in a residential service for many years. The external doors are locked, staff accompany them in the community, they appear settled and engage well, and they rarely raise concerns. Nobody has questioned the arrangements. A manager reviews the situation after the ruling and finds that staff cannot clearly explain how the person would show objection, the MCA assessment is several years old, the care plan calls the person "happy" with little to back it up, and the restrictions have not been formally reviewed for over a year.

Does that mean something is wrong? No. It identifies areas that need closer consideration. The question is never simply whether the service has failed. It is whether the service can demonstrate why the arrangements remain appropriate. That is the shift in a single sentence.

A practical first pass

You do not have to solve every case at once. A sensible first sweep looks like this:

• Brief your team with an accurate summary of the ruling, and make sure agency and bank staff get it too.
• Identify your borderline cases, the people in the middle rather than the clear-cut ones, because that is where the judgment changes things.
• Check whether each MCA assessment is current and decision-specific, rather than years old and general.
• List every restriction on each person and test it: why does it exist, what risk does it manage, is it still proportionate, and could a less restrictive approach achieve the same?
• For each person, write down how you know they are content and how they would show objection. If you cannot, that is your next action.
• Where you are genuinely unsure, keep the safeguard in place and refer. Uncertainty handled well is good governance, not failure.

Red flags worth checking now

Three patterns tend to surface as soon as you start looking, and each one is worth a closer review.

"They've never complained." The absence of complaints is not proof of contentment. Does the person understand they can complain? Would staff recognise a concern if it were expressed differently? The more useful question is how this person would show that they were unhappy, and if you cannot answer it, there is work to do.

Generic care plans. A plan that says only "happy," "settled" or "no concerns," without evidence, points to a gap. Strong plans describe how the person communicates contentment, distress and objection, with enough individual detail that a new member of staff could rely on it.

Restrictions that have become routine. Most restrictions start with a legitimate reason. The problem comes when nobody revisits them. Locked doors, community access limits, increased supervision and financial controls all deserve a periodic test: if we were introducing this today, would we still justify it the same way? If not, review it. Our article on why "no changes" is rarely neutral sets out what a robust review looks like.

What CQC will expect

Nobody yet knows exactly how the judgment will land in inspection practice, but the steadying point is that CQC inspects care, not court judgments. The fundamentals are unchanged: is the person safe, is care person-centred, are decisions lawful, are restrictions proportionate, is there effective oversight.

Two regulations carry the weight. Regulation 11, on consent, is untouched, so expect questions about how capacity is assessed, how best interests are considered, how people are involved, and how least restrictive options are explored. Regulation 17, on governance, is where most providers will feel the pressure: how do you know restrictions remain appropriate, what evidence supports your conclusions, and what has actually changed as a result of your reviews. The single most useful phrase to rehearse with your team is "show me how you know," because it reliably separates confidence from evidence, and we set out the questions staff are likely to be asked in a dedicated article. Inspectors will look for it in four places: your care plans, your MCA documentation, your daily practice, and your governance systems.