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A living Will is a statement expressing your views on how you would or would not like to be treated if you are unable to make decisions about your treatment yourself at the relevant time in the future.
The Mental Capacity Act 2005 provides a legal framework to help empower people to make their own decisions and to make clear what actions carers and family can take. It puts the law on advance decisions (or living Wills) on a clear statutory basis for the first time. The rules relate particularly to advance decisions to refuse treatment, including refusal of life-sustaining treatment.
When you are ill, you can usually discuss treatment options with your doctor and then jointly reach a decision about your future care. However, you may be admitted to hospital when unconscious or unable, on a temporary or permanent basis, to make your own decisions about your treatment or communicate your wishes. This may happen, for example, if you have a car accident or a stroke or develop dementia. To use the legal term – you would ‘lack mental capacity’ to make an informed decision and /or communicate your wishes.
In such situations, doctors have a legal and ethical obligation to act in your best interests. One exception to this is if you have made an advance decision refusing treatment. If this decision is valid and applicable to the circumstances, medical professionals providing your care are bound to follow it – whether or not they think it is in your best interests.
Advance decisions and advance statements are the formal names for the two different types of ‘living Will’.
The term ‘living Will’ doesn’t have a legal meaning but can be used to refer to either an advance decision or an advance statement.
An advance decision is a decision to refuse treatment; an advance statement is any other decision about how you would like to be treated. Only an advance decision is legally binding, but an advance statement should be taken into account when deciding what is in your best interests.
You may wish to make an advance decision if you have strong feelings about a particular situation that could arise in the future. This might relate to having a limb amputated following an accident or having a blood transfusion.
More commonly, you may have been told that you have a terminal illness or form of dementia. You may wish to prepare an advance decision indicating the type of treatment you would not want to receive in the future. Making an advance decision may give you peace of mind knowing that your wishes should not be ignored if you are unable to take part in the decision-making process at the relevant time.
Download the Advance decisions, advance statements and living wills factsheet (PDF, 181 KB)
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Downloads
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Most downloads on this website are PDFs. We use this format to ensure that the document looks the same on everyone’s computer (website pages, by contrast, appear differently depending on how people have set their computer up).
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We have made every effort to make our PDFs accessible to screen readers. Here is an overview of your accessibility options available in Acrobat Reader. Please ensure that you have downloaded the latest version of Acrobat Reader from the Adobe Reader website to ensure that they are included in your version of the programme.
You can use Adobe Reader to read a PDF out loud with the following shortcut keys:
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You can convert a PDF document into a text file for use with other software and hardware such as Braille printers by opening the PDF and choosing ‘Save as text’ from the File menu.
An Age UK LifeBook is a FREE book where you can store important and useful information about your life, which could prove invaluable to family and friends in case of an emergency. Visit our Home & care section for more details
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