What is a living will?
These are effectively your wishes should a situation happen where you may not be able to make a decision yourself, such as if in a serious accident, in a vegetative state and so on. It allows you to give advance instructions, even if carrying them out would lead to your death. Your instructions would only be carried out if there was no chance of you recovering mentally enough to change your previous decision.
Many of us would not want to continue to live under certain situations, like being kept alive by a machine when there is no hope of any quality of life, the most common instruction is the DNR – Do Not Resuscitate order but you may make whatever criteria you wish.
When making a living will it is suggested that you consider organ donation options, these would help your family emotionally, knowing a part of you effectively lives on or that your generosity has helped others to enjoy their life.
You should discuss your advance decision with a healthcare professional who knows your medical history and the risks and benefits of refusing certain treatments. You may also want to discuss it with your family and friends so that they understand your wishes. Ideally, you must give clear, written instructions about the circumstances under which you would not want to receive treatment and file this with your solicitor (ensure they are notified should a situation occur that would necessitate your wishes being relayed to medical staff), or you can leave them with friends/family.
Verbal instruction can be given to your GP so they can include it in your medical notes, you can change it at any time. If you want to refuse potentially life-sustaining treatment your decision must be in writing, signed, witnessed, and include the statement ‘even if life is at risk as a result.’
If you would prefer to be cared for in a certain way without threatening life then you can detail such things like: –
- If I lose mental capacity through a stroke or head injury then I would like to be cared for at home / I prefer to wear loose-fitting clothes / I would like a hairdresser to visit every two weeks to keep me looking presentable / I like to sleep with the windows open and so on.
- If I lose the ability to communicate then I would like to keep up to date with my favourite sport / I am a Christian and go to church every Sunday, if able I would like to keep going to church.
- If in a condition of artificial life support, I do not wish to be given food or drink by tube (doctors call this ‘artificial nutrition and hydration);
There is a multitude of personal preferences and you should consider what is personally
important to you. It is a quirk that you cannot state that you want to die, but you can restrict elements such as food and drink which are essential to life.
At Lestons we handle any living will writing requests in a three-stage process. Because of the sensitivity of the subject, we ensure that we do this on a face-to-face basis, this is so that we can confirm there are no external influences to affect your decision-making process.
Stage 1
You will be assessed on your own by our head of mental health, who is a fully trained psychologist, they will ensure that you have the mental ability to make the decisions, to support you if needed they will remain with you while you issue your instructions.
Stage 2
If deemed mentally suitable then our psychologist will invite our member of staff to join you to write down your instructions, they will not exert any influence at all but may question elements that have any degree of vagueness, this is to ensure clarity of your instructions, at this time please feel free to invite along anyone you choose, friends, family etc so they can be made aware of your wishes. At the end of the process, your entire instructions will be read back to you, any amendments made instantly – once completed it will be signed by yourself and witnesses by both our staff members and anyone else in attendance that you wish to witness it.
Stage 3
Once we have completed your instructions, we will both hold a record on file and forward a copy to your GP, the reason for this is that your GP would be one of the first persons contacted by medical staff in the event of your incapacitation.
Rest assured you can alter your instructions at any time; however, we would insist on reconducting these individual meetings to make sure that nobody is creating any undue influence upon you.
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