Grampians Region Palliative Care Consortium is committed to raising awareness of and promoting advance care planning in the community – before needing to be in hospital.
Remember an advance care plan is only used if you are unable to make and communicate your own decisions about the treatment you want or not want; so, it needs to be thought about and put in place ahead of when it may be needed.
Thinking and talking about the process of advance care planning and putting in place a written record (an advance care directive) is important for everyone, whether you are:
- Younger and well, but concerned about the health of older or unwell family or friends, or
- Older and want to lessen the burden on family or friends.
The Medical Treatment Planning and Decisions Act 2016
The MTPD Act 2016 gives statutory recognition to advance care directives in Victorian law and creates clear obligations for health practitioners caring for people who do not have decision-making capacity.
To give Victorians confidence that their decisions about medical treatment will be respected, the Department of Health and Human Services has created the standard forms below, which allow Victorians to:
- Make an advance care directive which can include an instructional directive (which will provide specific directives about treatment a person consents to or refuses) and/or a values directive (which will describe a person’s views and values).
- Appoint a medical treatment decision maker (who will make decisions on behalf of a person when they no longer have decision making capacity).
- Appoint a support person (who will assist a person to make decisions for themselves, by collecting and interpreting information or assisting the person to communicate their decisions).
For further information on advance care planning, please visit Advance Care Planning Australia or the Better Health Channel.
Additional resources for health practitioners can be found elsewhere in the Dept. of Health’s Advance Care Planning section.
Other useful resources:-
www.publicadvocate.vic.gov.au/upcoming-changes-to-medical-decision-making-laws
www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/havetheconversation
Guardianship-and-administration-orders
National Palliative Care Standards - 5th edition 2018
