Dr HB Lo — Integrative GP · Advance Care Planning worksheet ·
Generated drhblo.com/tools/advance-care-plan General information to help you prepare and to start the conversation. Not medical, legal, or personal advice — and not an emergency service. This page does not create a legal advance care directive. To make a legal plan, use your state's official form and talk with your doctor. In an emergency call 000.
Advance care planning: what do I want, who needs to know?
Type a few rough words about what would matter to you if you ever got too unwell to speak for yourself. I'll hand you back a one-page worksheet — what you want, and the four people who need to know it — ready to print and put in front of your family this week.
A thinking-and-talking scaffold built on Advance Care Planning Australia's Plan · Discuss · Share model. It does not create a legal directive — it gets you ready to fill in your state's free official form and have the conversation. For any adult over 18.
If this is an emergency, don't use this tool — call 000 now.
Chest pain, trouble breathing, signs of stroke (face drooping, arm weakness, slurred speech), severe bleeding, or thoughts of harming yourself: call 000 or go to your nearest emergency department. Lifeline 13 11 14.
This tool helps you prepare and start the conversation — it can't tell if something is serious. If you're worried something might be urgent, call 000 or your GP now.
You've just told me what you want. Right now, if you couldn't speak for yourself, the law would let someone decide for you — and there's a real chance it wouldn't be the person you'd pick, saying what you just said.
In Australia, around 1 in 3 people will be unable to make their own medical decisions at the end of life — yet most have never written their wishes down or told the person who'd be asked. (Advance Care Planning Australia)
Who needs to know what you just said
The four people the law and the health system would actually turn to. A solid box means they already know; a dashed, blank box means they don't yet.
1.The person who speaks for you
Who would you want? Write their name.
2.Your GP / regular doctor
Do they have a copy of your wishes?
3.Your family / next of kin
Have you told them what you want?
4.The hospital / your health record
Is it uploaded to My Health Record?
The five questions a directive will ask you
These are questions to decide your own answer to — there's no recommended answer. Tick each one off as you talk it through.
Q1What would a good outcome look like to you?e.g. being able to recognise the people you love, being at home, being free of pain.
Q2What would be unacceptable to you?e.g. being kept alive on machines with no real chance of recovery.
Q3Who do you want to speak for you if you can't speak for yourself?The person from box 1 — and they need to be appointed properly to count.
Q4What do the people close to you already know about all this?If the answer is "not much", that's the conversation to have this week.
Q5What matters to you beyond medical care — where you are, who's with you, anything spiritual or cultural?Your answer here is yours alone; there's no right one.
Here's the part most people miss
Thinking about this in your head changes nothing. In Australia your wishes only carry real weight when they're written on your state's official form and the people who'd be asked have actually seen them. A note in your head, or even on this page, isn't a legal advance care directive — and a substitute decision-maker has to be appointed properly to count. (Advance Care Planning Australia — make your plan)
Email yourself this one-pager — the questions and the "who needs to know" list — so you can sit down with your family and fill it in.
One field, email only.
I'll also send the occasional drhblo email. Unsubscribe anytime.
Sent — check your inbox. Here's your worksheet again so you can screenshot it now.
When you're ready to make it official, your state has a free legal form. Start here:
General information to help you prepare and to start the conversation. Not medical, legal, or personal advice — and not an emergency service. This page does not create a legal advance care directive. To make a legal plan, use your state's official form and talk with your doctor. In an emergency call 000.