Planning for future decisions
Talking to your family, carers, GP or health care team about what type of health care treatments you would want if you were very unwell is important.
It means that your wishes are known if other people need to make health care decisions for you. This would be at times when you are not able to communicate or make these decisions for yourself.
We call this advance care planning. It means thinking about what matters to you and what health care choices you would want if you were very unwell. It supports you to speak to others about this or to write down these thoughts.
You can start advance care planning when you are well. It is important if you are:
- having surgery,
- an older person,
- have one or more long term illnesses,
- have early cognition problems, or
- are nearing the end of life.