What is Advance Care Planning?
Advance Care Planning helps people to talk with their health care providers, family members and other important people in their lives about their health, and any choices they have made for their health care.
Advance Care Planning helps ensure that an individual’s choices relating to future medical treatment are respected, in case a time comes when they are so ill that they can no longer make or communicate decisions for themselves.
Why do I need to plan?
Through age, illness or accident, you may find it hard to say what treatment you want and to understand what’s going on with your medical treatment. Health care decisions then fall to families, friends and doctors who may not be aware of your actual wishes. Advance Care Planning can help loved ones make medical decisions for you, confident that they know what your wishes would be.
Advance Care Planning involves:
- Discussing your medical condition and treatment options with your GP and/or specialist. Thinking about your lifestyle and what is important to you.
- Talking about these things, including your future care preferences, with your loved ones.
- Deciding which person you would like to make health care decisions for you in the event you cannot make them for yourself. It is important that you talk to the person you nominate to ensure they are willing to do this for you and that they know your preferences.
If you want to, your choices can then be translated into a written plan of action, either an Advance Care Plan, an Advance Care Directive and/or an Enduring Guardianship.