{"entity":{"id":"advance-care-planning","kind":"term","name":"Advance care planning","aka":["advanced care planning","ACP"],"tldr":"Advance care planning means talking with your family and your care team about what matters to you and writing down the care you would want if you became too unwell to say. You can start at any point, and you can change it later.","summary":"Advance care planning is the process by which a person, while able to decide, discusses and records their values, goals and preferences for future care so that they guide treatment if the person later loses the ability to decide or communicate. ESMO published a clinical practice guideline on it in 2014 (Schrijvers and Cherny, Annals of Oncology).\n\nThe documents differ by country and by legal force. Some are legal instruments: in England and Wales an advance decision to refuse treatment and a health and welfare lasting power of attorney, both under the Mental Capacity Act 2005; in the US an advance directive such as Five Wishes. Others are clinical recommendations or orders: ReSPECT in the UK, which its own page describes as a non-legally binding form, and POLST in the US, a signed medical order for people who are seriously ill or frail. Structured conversation tools such as the Serious Illness Conversation Guide help clinicians open the discussion.","asOf":"2026-11-04","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_care_planning","links":[{"label":"ESMO Clinical Practice Guidelines on palliative care: advanced care planning (Ann Oncol 2014)","url":"https://doi.org/10.1093/annonc/mdu241"},{"label":"NHS: end of life care","url":"https://www.nhs.uk/tests-and-treatments/end-of-life-care/"}],"tags":["supportive","carer"],"related":[],"cancers":[],"sections":[],"technologies":["palliative-care","hospice-end-of-life"],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":["respect-process","polst","five-wishes","advance-decision-to-refuse-treatment","lasting-power-of-attorney-health-welfare","serious-illness-conversation-guide"],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"category":"Clinic basics"},"route":"/terms/advance-care-planning/","neighbours":{"technology":[{"id":"palliative-care","kind":"technology","name":"Early integrated palliative care","route":"/technologies/palliative-care/"},{"id":"hospice-end-of-life","kind":"technology","name":"Hospice and end-of-life care","route":"/technologies/hospice-end-of-life/"}],"term":[{"id":"advance-decision-to-refuse-treatment","kind":"term","name":"Advance decision to refuse treatment (England and Wales)","route":"/terms/advance-decision-to-refuse-treatment/"},{"id":"five-wishes","kind":"term","name":"Five Wishes advance directive","route":"/terms/five-wishes/"},{"id":"lasting-power-of-attorney-health-welfare","kind":"term","name":"Lasting power of attorney for health and welfare (England and Wales)","route":"/terms/lasting-power-of-attorney-health-welfare/"},{"id":"polst","kind":"term","name":"POLST (Portable Medical Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment)","route":"/terms/polst/"},{"id":"prognostic-evaluation-advanced-cancer","kind":"term","name":"Prognostic evaluation in advanced cancer","route":"/terms/prognostic-evaluation-advanced-cancer/"},{"id":"respect-process","kind":"term","name":"ReSPECT (Recommended Summary Plan for Emergency Care and Treatment)","route":"/terms/respect-process/"},{"id":"serious-illness-conversation-guide","kind":"term","name":"Serious Illness Conversation Guide","route":"/terms/serious-illness-conversation-guide/"}]}}