The UK Supreme Court's judgment in Cheshire West and Chester Council v P [2014] fundamentally changed the approach to determining if a person who lacked capacity was deprived of their liberty by the State. The Supreme Court further held that a deprivation of liberty could occur in any care setting including a person's own home. In this article, Richard Griffith discusses the approach district nurses should adopt when determining whether a patient being cared for at home is deprived of his/her liberty.
Keywords: care home; community health nurses; decision making; deprivation of liberty; liberty.