HUNDREDS of applications to allow carers to make decisions for vulnerable people in Southampton take longer than the legal time limit to be processed.

Hospitals and care homes in Southampton must apply to Southampton City Council (SCC) for permission to make decisions for anyone thought to "lack the mental capacity" to make them for themselves.

This includes people with dementia or serious mental health problems.

There is a legal time limit of 21 days for standard applications to be processed.

NHS Digital data shows SCC dealt with 410 standard applications in 2019 to 2020, but only 25 (six per cent) were completed within 21 days.

But the council claims that they are doing "all they can" to ensure that the applications are responded to.

Care homes and hospitals can apply for authorisation up to 28 days in advance of when they plan to make decisions on behalf of a resident or patient.

If the decision needs to be made before the council can respond to a request for a standard authorisation, care homes and hospitals can use an urgent authorisation, which allows them to make decisions on the person's behalf for up to seven days.

This needs to be authorised by the council within that time.

Southampton City Council also dealt with 435 urgent applications in 2019-20.

It took the council an average of 156 days to process urgent and standard requests – up from 85 days in the previous year.

The longest application took 1,821 days to complete.

A spokesperson from SCC said: "We recognise that the delays in processing Mental Capacity Act Deprivation of Liberty Safeguard (DoLS) applications is an issue nationally and local authorities across the country are also experiencing delays when processing these applications.

"This is due to recent changes in the law – specifically the Cheshire West judgment 2014 - which means that a much greater number of individuals are subject to a deprivation of liberty assessment and will come under the protection of the DoLS procedure.

"In Southampton, this has resulted in our applications for DoLS rise from 60 per year to approximately 1000 per year.

"We assure residents we are doing all we can to ensure these applications are responded to and prioritised on the basis of need and recent increased staffing into the team will have a positive impact on our ability to deliver outcomes for vulnerable people of the city.

"We are also listening to and actioning the valued feedback from Carers, to support us to make informed decisions on behalf of the vulnerable people of Southampton."

Across England, 117,675 standard applications were dealt with, but only 24 per cent of them were processed within 21 days.

The average waiting time was 142 days, five fewer than in 2018-19.