It’s Dying Matters Awareness Week 2025. A week dedicated to creating an open culture in which we are comfortable talking about death, dying and grief. Let’s talk Advance Care Planning.
It can be difficult to make plans about the type of treatment and care you might need in the future. Advance care planning can help you to record what sort of care you want to have and who should be consulted if you become too unwell to make decisions.
Hospice UK has produced some helpful information about Advance Care Planning. They’ve got lots of information and resources, and we’ve pulled out a couple of things below.
What is Advance Care Planning?
Advance Care Planning supports people to think ahead about what’s most important to them as they approach end of life.
Most adults have the capacity to make decisions about their treatment, but this can change over time with illness.
Examples where someone might not have this capacity is when they have conditions like dementia, brain damage, or severe learning disabilities.
It is a good idea to talk about the type of care and treatment you might want with people who are important to you, such as a partner, your family or doctor. This is called advance care planning.
Advance plans can also be made for everyday decisions that might have nothing to do with medical treatment, such as the place where you would want to be looked after if you become incapable of looking after yourself.
If you have not made an advance care plan and you become too unwell to make decisions for yourself, your next of kin will be consulted by medical staff.
Planning ahead
Planning things like what type of funeral you want and who to leave your belongings to can make your final days easier, giving you more time with family and friends. It’s important to make plans and talk. We recommend talking to your care team or healthcare professional.
Hospice UK ‘planning ahead’ tool
Hospice UK has an online ‘planning ahead’ tool which you can try for free.
Sometimes, people don’t feel well enough to choose at the time when important health-care decisions need to be made. This tool is about thinking ahead about some of those choices, so you can decide what matters most to you and consider some of those choices ahead of time.
None of the choices you make in the tool are binding – you can change your mind at any time. At the end of the tool there is information about how to make some legally binding decisions if you want to do that.
More information
If you’re interested in this topic we recommend visiting Hospice UK’s website to access all their information and resources.
