A primary care trust, local authority, Welsh Ministers or a local health board that is responsible for considering a deprivation of liberty request received from a managing authority, commissioning the statutory assessments and, where all the assessments agree, authorising deprivation of liberty.

The Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) can only apply to people who are in a care home or hospital. This includes where there are plans to move a person to a care home or hospital where they may be deprived of their liberty. The care home or hospital is called the managing authority in the DoLS. Where a managing authority thinks it needs to deprive someone of their liberty they have to ask for this to be authorised by a supervisory body. They can do this up to 28 days in advance of when they plan to deprive the person of their liberty. For care homes and hospitals the supervisory body is the local authority where the person is ordinarily resident. Usually this will be the local authority where the care home is located unless the person is funded by a different local authority.