Advance care planning

Advance care planning (ACP) is done in anticipation of something adverse happening and the likelihood of losing the capacity to be involved in future decision making. ACP encourages people to think about what might happen in serious illness scenarios and to consider their needs or wishes. As long-term conditions, multimorbidity, frailty and end-of-life care become more dominant health challenges, planning for future problems and giving patients and their carers the tools to self-manage becomes more imperative. ACP is part of this philosophy of care, anticipating and planning for future health and care needs. Increasingly, the utility of ACP seems to lie more in promoting conversations and particularly shining a light on the values that give people their identity. Patient relationships with family caregivers and health professionals, and a collective shared understanding, improve through the ACP process. Enabling people to be cared for in a way that preserves their identities and values for as long as possible seems to be more effective than focusing on documentary outputs.