What is a Paid Relevant Persons Representative?

The Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) are designed to protect people who are being deprived of their liberty in a hospital or care home setting. There are legal safeguards in place which ensure everyone has a Relevant Person’s Representative (RPR) to ensure that all decisions relating to care and support are in a person’s best interests and are necessary and proportionate.

Our role is to:

• To provide continuing support and regular contact to the person being deprived of their liberty
• To ensure that all people involved in the individuals care uphold the persons rights and act in their best interest at all times
• Assist the person to voice their concerns to the hospital or care home
• Assist the person to make a complaint
• Challenge a deprivation of liberty authorisation if the person is not happy with the deprivation or the deprivation may not be appropriate, through the review process
• Make an application, on the persons behalf, to the Court of Protection
• Referrals to the Relevant Persons Representative Service:

We are only able to accept referrals from the relevant supervisory body and cannot accept referrals from individuals or their families.

We currently provide the Relevant Persons Representative Service in the following local authority areas:

Blaenau Gwent, Caerphilly, Cardiff, Monmouthshire, Newport, Torfaen, Vale of Glamorgan.

If you wish to commission a paid RPR for a hospital setting in these areas, please contact Advocacy Support Cymru on 02920 540444.

If you are from a Local Authority outside of our area of operation as listed above, please email advocacy@mhfawales.org to discuss your requirements. We will send you a referral form to complete once we have agreed to accept your referral.