Advance Care Directives which enable you to make arrangements for your future health care, end of life, preferred living arrangements and other personal matters supersede the old Powers of Guardianship although Powers of Guardianship prepared before 1 July 2014 are still valid. Advance Care Directives have been designed so you can prepare them without the need for a solicitor’s involvement. Forms can be obtained at a small cost from Services SA. We provide our clients a kit free of charge.
An Advance Care Directive gives you the ability to make directions about your future health care, accommodation arrangements and personal affairs and specify outcomes or interventions that you wish to avoid. It allows decisions about the future to be made by a person you choose if you lose capacity.
An Advance Care Directive must be in the approved form. These are available online or for purchase at ServiceSA counters. Swan Family Lawyers provide them free of charge to wills clients. Lawyers do not prepare Advance Care Directives. It is intended that they be completed by you in your home with the help of your family.
A person giving an Advance Care Directive may appoint one or more adults to be substitute decision makers but there is no obligation to do so and they may simply choose to give directions.
A substitute decision maker can make any decision that the person who gave the directive could have made in respect to their health care, accommodation and personal affairs.