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Advance Care Planning
Advance Care Planning
These resources have been developed to support a collaborative approach to advance care planning.
Good conversations support good end of life care.
Advance Care Planning (ACP) is a process of discussion between a health care professional and a patient about their future care needs. It helps patients and their families establish their priorities in end of life care in anticipation or recognition of their deterioration. The discussion should be documented, reviewed regularly and communicated to key people involved in their care.
The main goal is to clarify peoples' wishes, needs and preferences and deliver care to meet these needs.'Advance care planning is a process that supports adults at any age or stage of health in understanding and sharing their personal values, life goals, and preferences regarding future medical care. The goal of advance care planning is to help ensure that people receive medical care that is consistent with their values, goals and preferences during serious and chronic illness.'
Advance Care Planning is:
- everybody's business
- about recognising appropriate patients and seeking opportunities for conversations
- a time to allow patients and families an opportunity to express 'what matters most'
- not a one-off process, but a series of conversations
- not a tick box exercise
- an opportunity for patients and families to ask for the information they need or desire
- about sharing information about a person's wishes and preferences to inform their ongoing care
- enabling patients and families to hold their own information and advance care plan
- dependent on a clinician's confidence and communication skills
Advance Care Planning discussions can support:
- Treatment Escalation Planning / ReSPECT
- Understanding preferences for place of care and place of death
- Understanding wishes for ongoing care – an advance statement of wishes
- Completing an Advance Decision to Refuse Treatment
- Decision to complete Lasting Power of Attorney for Health and Welfare application
- Decision to complete Lasting Power of Attorney for Finances application
- Identifying a person who knows what their wishes are - family or friend
- Decision to make a will
- Understanding tissue donation wishes
NICE Quality Standard 2017, NICE Guidance 2015
People approaching the end of life and their families and carers are communicated with, and offered information, in an accessible and sensitive way in response to their needs and preferences.
NICE Guidance NG31 – Care of Dying Adults in the Last days of Life
NICE Quality Standard QS144 – Care of Dying Adults in the Last Days of Life