End of Life Care | Advance care planning | ACP in practice: using an end-of-life care tool

ACP in practice: using an end-of-life care tool
Session overview
Description
This session describes how the Preferred Priorities for Care tool may be used to facilitate advance care planning.

This session was reviewed by Fiona Rawlinson and Sarah Hanrott, and last updated in February 2023.

By the end of this session you will be able to:

• describe how advance care planning (ACP) can be an enabler to good end of life care outcomes for patients and families
• describe how ACP may be facilitated using documents such as Preferred Priorities of Care (PPC) or ReSPECT plans as examples of ACP tools
• discuss issues that need consideration when using these tools to support ACP

Before commencing this session we suggest you complete:

• Introduction to advance care planning (215-0101)

Advance care planning (ACP) is the process of identifying an individual's future wishes and care preferences. It takes place in the context of an anticipated deterioration in the individual's condition in the future, with attendant loss of capacity to make decisions and/or ability to communicate wishes to others. This may or may not result in the recording of these discussions in the form of an Advance Care Plan.

Advance care planning may involve discussions about:

• an advance statement of preferences (what the person would like to happen). This is not legally binding and may need to be accompanied by other documents such as an advance decision to refuse treatment (ADRT)
• an ADRT which formalises things that the patient does not want to happen. This is a legally binding document.

The choices and priorities of the individual are at the centre of all end of life care planning and delivery.

There is a growing number of tools that support the implementation of an end of life care strategy, all of which require continuing evaluation.

In this session, we will offer an overview of one of these tools, Preferred Priorities for Care (PPC). This tool is a template for an advance statement, and the session will demonstrate how the tool may be used to facilitate ACP.