Advance Care Planning is a way to record your plans, wishes, preferences and priorities for your care in the future.  

The Advance Care Planning Patient Held Record provides a framework which helps you think ahead and to document your wishes for a time when you might be unable to easily communicate your plans yourself.  Areas contained in this document include:

• Advance Decisions to Refuse Treatment
• Preferred Priorities of Care

Please talk to your contact from the hospice about how you might include this form in your plans.

Once you have completed the form you should keep it in a prominent place in your home.  Full details on how to complete it are included on the front page of the form.  If you change your mind about any of the details, then you need to sign and date the changes you make. 

Further information sources include:

Advance Decisions to Refuse Treatment (www.adrtnhs.co.uk)
Lasting Powers of Attorney (http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Governmentcitizensandrights/Mentalcapacityandthelaw/Mentalcapacityandplanningahead/DG_185921)
Preferred Priorities for Care (http://www.endoflifecareforadults.nhs.uk/)

 There is also Advance Care Planning: A Guide for Health and Social Care Staff