Do You Know What A 'RPPRs' is...?

We'd like to introduce you to the work we do as Relevant Persons Paid Representatives (RPPRs). Heads up that we’re going to be talking about people being deprived of their liberty, so if that might feel hard to read, you might want to come back to this later or choose not to read if you think it might be distressing.

When people have been deprived of their liberty under the Mental Capacity Act they are entitled to have a representative – someone who makes sure they understand the process and know their rights. This could be a friend or family member, or an RPPR. It’s sometimes really important for someone to have a paid representative rather than someone they know, especially if what their friends and family want is different to what they would want for themselves. We work with people with dementia, people with learning disabilities and people with high mental health needs, and we support people all over Norfolk.

As RPPRs we visit people in care homes, hospitals and other residential settings to check that their rights are being respected and upheld. We also support people to legally challenge the deprivation of their liberty when they are unhappy and believe they should be able to live somewhere else.

RPPRs are independent – that means they are only there for the person who is deprived of their liberty and they are not led by family members, care home staff, social workers or any other professionals. They will always advocate for what their client wants, not what anybody else wants, and they take time to really get to know the people they’re working with and how they communicate.

We know that everyone is the expert on their own life and that when people’s voices are listened to, real change can happen. Here are some examples of what our RPPRs have achieved over the last few months:

• We supported one client to move from a care home in Norfolk to one in Yorkshire, so that she could be closer to her daughters. They can now visit her much more often.

• We recently took a case to the Court of Protection and successfully advocated for a client who was living in a care home to have a trial period back at her own home – if the trial goes ok she will be able to stay at home and will have the support she needs to live more independently.

• We took another case to the Court and pushed for the client to have a new capacity assessment. He was found to have capacity and will now be able to choose where he wants to live.