Advance Care Planning

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For Patients and Visitors

Advance Care Planning (ACP) is about planning ahead for your future healthcare, in case you are ever too sick to speak for yourself. Advance Care Planning is something you can do for yourself, to plan for a time when you might not be able to make your own medical treatment decisions.

If a person currently lacks capacity (or the ability) to complete an Advance Care Directive, they cannot do Advance Care Planning. Please go to Resources for people who lack capacity for Advance Care Planning

The Northern Health approach to advance care planning is called ‘A C P in 3-steps’, and is a simple way to understand and do advance care planning.

A	Appoint Another You can sign a legal form making it clear who you want to make MEDICAL DECISIONS for you if you are too sick to do it yourself. This is a ‘Medical Treatment Decision Maker’.

C	Chat & Communicate Talk to your family, friends and doctors about your values, beliefs and health care preferences. Tell them about what is important for you. Also talk to your doctors or other health professionals to find out more about what might be ahead.

P	Put it on Paper If there is something you feel strongly about, you can write it down in an Advance Care Directive. You can write down your health care values and preferences for future medical treatments, including what type of medical treatment you would agree to, and what you would not want.

Think about writing an Advance Care Directive if:

you have firm preferences about future medical treatment
you have no-one, or no-one suitable, that you could appoint as a Medical Treatment Decision Maker
you have preferences for your health care that are different from what you think your family would want for you.

What can I expect from the service?

Northern Health can provide you with further information and assistance to complete an Advance Care Directive and/or appoint a Medical Treatment Decision Maker.

Further information:

Advance Care Planning Brochure – Who will help make medical decisions for you?

English
Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander
Arabic العربية
Chinese 中文
Farsi Persian فارسی
Greek Ελληνικά
Hindi हिंदी
Italian Italiano
Macedonian Македонски
Nepali नेपाली

Punjabi ਪੰਜਾਬੀ
Serbian Cyrillic српски
Serbian Latin srpski
Turkish Türkçe
Vietnamese Tiếng Việt

Download: Take Control Booklet

Contact Us:

Program Manager: James Watt, 9495 3235

Administration: Karen Overall, 9495 3140

Email: acp@nh.org.au

Interpreter Service: Please call 131 450 (free service)

For Health Professionals:

Advance Care Planning (ACP) is about planning ahead for future healthcare, in case a person is too sick to speak for themself. Advance Care Planning can only be done by a person with decision-making capacity.

If a person currently lacks capacity to complete an Advance Care Directive, they cannot do Advance Care Planning. Please go to ‘Resources for people who lack capacity for Advance Care Planning’

The Northern Health approach to advance care planning is called ‘A C P in 3-steps’, and is a simple way to understand and do advance care planning.

A	Appoint Another Identify or appoint a Medical Treatment Decision Maker.

C	Chat & Communicate About values and preferences for future health care.

P	Put it on Paper Write down strongly held preferences.

Northern Health’s Advance Care Planning service provides consumers with information and guidance in completing an Advance Care Directive and/or a Medical Treatment Decision Maker.

Who will make medical decisions for you? ACP brochure (see For Patient & Visitors above for other languages)

How we can assist Health Professionals:

We are available to provide advice, education and assistance with advance care planning. This includes joint advance care planning consultations with the clinician and patient and (limited) provision of an ACP service to the community.

Health Professional Education and Resources

Northern Health’s advance care planning program offer health professionals the opportunity for our program manager to visit your practice to discuss Advance Care Planning. For further information or to arrange an appointment, contact 9495 3235 or email: acp@nh.org.au

Areas of focus:
– how to introduce the advance care planning to your patients
– how to conduct ongoing advance care planning discussions
– how to complete advance care planning documents