Many were surprised that the Coronavirus Act 2020 had no mention of the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) or the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) (in England, there were some changes in Northern Ireland), given that it would be likely that there would be increased pressure on the already over worked DoLs system. When the Act was being debate in parliament, the health minister, Lord Bethell, said:  “We recognise that we have to strike a careful balance between the need to protect some of the most vulnerable in our society with preventing the spread of the virus. Therefore, we have decided not to alter deprivation of liberty safeguards in primary legislation. However, we think that we can achieve significant improvement to the process through emergency guidance. That will include making clearer when a deprivation of liberty safeguards authorisation is necessary, and the basis on which an assessment can be made, including, for example, phone or video calling for assessment...

This post was originally published on British Institute of Human Rights News .