This blog looks at what an Advance Care Planning Advocate is and why I have chosen to work in this area.

You might have noticed a new and improved website recently; working with Warp Design has been a chance to review my website but, more importantly, it’s been an opportunity to really think about the services I offer. Creating the menu of services was fun, it also helped me to realise the many elements of work that have developed and expanded since I set up in business. Advance Care Planning is a theme running throughout, whether this is providing professional education, raising public awareness or acting as a Lasting Power of Attorney Consultant.

What is an Advance Care Planning?

Advance Care Planning is all about thinking head and making decisions appropriate to you and in line with the things that are most important to you. Much of Advance Care Planning is part of normal life planning and includes things like:

· Lasting Power of Attorney

· Advance Decision to Refuse Treatment

· Local Advance Care Plan

· Organ Donation

· Donating your body for medical education

· Exploring views around cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

· Digital Legacy

· Memory Making

· Will

Towards the later stages of life Advance Care Planning could include:

· Fast Track Continuing Health Care

· DNACPR (ReSPECT)

· Treatment Escalation Plan (included in a ReSPECT)

· Completing a local Advance Care Plan

· Ordering appropriate equipment of a person wishes to die at home

· Making sure appropriate medication is available if needed

What is an Advance Care Planning Advocate?

As an Advance Care Planning Advocate, my work sets out to raise public awareness and improve professional understanding of Advance Care Planning. I aim to normalise what many think of as Difficult Conversations and promote the idea of Important Conversations. The podcast Conversations about Advance Care Planning with Clare Fuller is a great example of my advocacy work and looks at a different element of Advance Care Planning in each episode.

Why is it important to me to be an Advance Care Planning Advocate?

It’s easy to summarise why it matters so much to me to be an Advance Care Planning Advocate and what inspired my business:

· I have seen first hand and too frequently what happens when Advance Care Planning is left too late in my career.

· I have seen the system from the other side when I cared for a family member and found a system impossible to navigate.

· I receive the same calls for help from people wanting to plan but not know how to or being heard.

Responding to this need has shaped the growth of the services I now offer.

What would I like to achieve as an Advance Care Planning Advocate?

There is excellent resource and information available, many of which I have written about earlier blogs, we have a consistent approach to planning with the new Universal Principles for Advance Care Planning but what we lack is the nuts and bolts to effectively “do” Advance Care Planning.

This doesn’t mean making a one sized all approach to Advance Care Planning, but it does mean using a consistent approach.

As an Advance Care Planning Advocate, I promote, campaign and work towards:

· A National repository of information for the public and Health Care Professionals

· A Shared language of Advance Care Planning

· Agreed and shared tools for Advance Care Planning

· Agreed benchmarking standards

· Consistency in sharing information

· Embedding Advance Care Planning into Health Care Professional education

· Ensuring generalist teams have the skills and knowledge to deliver Advance Care Planning.

· Ensuring there are highly skilled specialists for complex Advance Care Planning

· Making Advance Care Planning part of everyday life

· Developing a national Advance Care Planning week

· Seeing Advance Care Planning embedded into care not an optional extra

· Empowering the public to request for Advance Care Planning

I’d love to see Advance Care Planning truly embedded into care to be demystified; it’s quite simply about making sure What Matters Most is at the heart of care. As proud advocate, I will continue to support public awareness and professional understanding of Advance Care Planning through all my work.

If you have been inspired by reading this blog, what will you do next?

· Think of your own Advance Care Planning? Do you need to make a Lasting Power of Attorney, share your Organ Donation wishes or to start your Digital Legacy.

· If you work for a team, take a moment to think how confident you are that Advance Care Planning is embedded into practice.

· Subscribe to Conversations about Advance Care Planning with Clare Fuller and let me know if you would like to guest on the podcast or see a specific topic discussed.

· For all of us, Advance Care Planning could also mean having a conversation that matters with a person we love.

If you would like to find out how I can help you with Advance Care Planning contact me