Advance care planning

Advance care planning should be offered to all of your older patients. It supports timely and appropriate decision-making about end-of-life care and helps to ensure that the Substitute Decision Maker (SDM) is aware of the patient’s wishes. 

In planning for end-of-life care:

• Encourage interactive discussions between the patient and those close to them, while they still have decision-making capacity, including preferences for life-sustaining treatment and where the death might occur
• Formally appoint and inform a Substitute Decision Maker (SDM) - this may be someone beyond the immediate family
• Develop and record an advance care plan, together with their families and other health care professionals. An advance care directive is the perfect tool to document their wishes.

Advance care planning - State and Territory information

Resources vary across each Australian jurisdiction, documents required are dependent on the State or Territory where the person resides.

• Advance Care Planning resources for all Australian States and Territories are available from the Advance Care Planning Australia website

Helpful resources

• Advance Care Planning Australia
  Provides training assistance and resources for health professionals to better implement advance care planning.
• Advance Care Planning in General Practice: Guidance on use of MBS Items (182kb pdf)

Page updated 17 April 2018