A Health and Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney is something that is often put in place because you fear that you may lose your capacity to make decisions for yourself sometime in the future. This might relate to the care home that you are placed in or the medical treatment that you would want to have. A Health and Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney allows you to set out your wishes and communicate to your loved ones what do you believe should happen to you?
In order to make a Health and Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney, it is important that you seek professional legal advice as soon as possible. At Loveday Solicitors, we have vast amounts of experience in Lasting Power of Attorney and can help you to put this in place. We can offer independent advice on how this may benefit you and can help you to put it together to ensure that it is fair, correct and binding.
What is a Health and Welfare LPA?
A lasting power of attorney gives someone that you trust the power to make decisions for you. It is an important legal document that ensures you remain in control of your care and medication even when you lack the mental capacity to make those decisions. It can cover where you live and where you are cared for, as well as your daily routine, your diet, medical care and treatment options. It can also outline the people that you wish to see and spend time with.
There are different types of lasting power of attorney that you may want to put together. A Property and Financial Affairs Lasting Power of Attorney will only cover your finances and property and so it is important to make a separate Health and Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney to cover the care that you receive.
This can help to ensure that all your wishes are followed even if you have reached a point where you are not able to communicate them anymore. It can also be beneficial for your family who can avoid court proceedings, when it comes to establishing your care in the future. A lasting power of attorney can give you peace of mind that you will still be able to spend your time in the way that you choose. It can also give friends and relatives confidence that they are doing what you would have wanted.
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Responsibilities of a Health and Welfare Attorney
When you create a Health and Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney, it is important that you give this responsibility to somebody that you trust. It can cover any decisions about treatment and care. It will outline all of your wishes, even if you lack the mental capacity to make the decisions for yourself.
These wishes can be as simple as deciding how you want your daily routine to be spent. It can include things like washing, dressing and eating, and who should be responsible for these tasks. You can also set out where you want to live. You might have a specific care home in mind or a type of care that you want to receive. Alternatively, you may want to specify that you wish to remain at home and be cared for in your own surroundings.
You can also make decisions in advance on life sustaining treatment such as CPR or artificial ventilation. You can set out what your wishes will be and decide if your attorney has the right to make decisions about this kind of treatment on your behalf. Without this, it will be left to the doctor who is in charge of your care to make those decisions instead.
A living will can also be written which allows you to refuse medical treatments in advance. It is important to remember that any lasting power of attorney cannot override a living will. When you create a Health and Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney, you are handing over your care and medical treatment to someone else, so it is important that you make sure this is a person that you can trust. You will effectively be putting your life and decisions around it in their hands, so you need to be confident that they will always have your best interests and wishes at heart.
How to Set Up a Health and Welfare LPA
In order to set up a Health and Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney, you first need to decide who that attorney will be. You should ensure that it is someone who is over the age of 18 and is likely to understand and respect your wishes. They may have to stand up for what you want, even in the face of disagreements from doctors or relatives and must have the time available to support you in your long-term care. To set up a Health and Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney, you will need to fill in a number of forms, either online or on paper. These forms will need to be signed by any attorneys that you have chosen and witnesses.
Once you have created your Health and Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney, you will need to register it with the Office of the Public Guardian, which can take up to 20 weeks if there are no mistakes. Before you register your Lasting Power of Attorney, you should also notify all the people involved. This gives them three weeks to raise any concerns that they may have.
It costs £82 to register your lasting Power of Attorney unless you have an exemption due to being in receipt of certain benefits.
You can confirm that a copy of your Lasting Power of Attorney is genuine by certifying it. This can be done by yourself, one of the Lovedays Solicitors or a person authorised to carry out any notarial activities on your behalf.
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What Happens Without a Health and Welfare LPA?
People can decide to set up a Health and Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney for different reasons. They may be aware that they have an ongoing illness which may affect their ability to make decisions in the future, and therefore want to outline their wishes in advance while they are still able to do so. This can help people to stay in control and make things easier for their friends and family.
If you lose the capacity to make decisions without having a Health and Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney in place, then you will no longer be able to decide what you want or who makes those decisions on your behalf. This can mean that all decisions are left to doctors and other authorities involved in your care and your family members will be excluded from any decision-making processes. This means that social services may decide on where you will live and doctors may decide to resuscitate you even if that is not what you would have wanted.
If your family decides to apply to the court to enable them to make decisions on your behalf, then they may be unsuccessful, and the cost is likely to be much greater. It can also mean that there are lengthy delays in deciding how to care for you or what medical treatment should be offered. If your family disagrees with the medical advice that is being given, they may choose to fight any decisions in court, and this can mean that there is a delay in you receiving the treatment that you need or may have wanted.
How Lovedays Solicitors Can Help
It is often assumed that a Health and Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney is something that is only put in place in old age, but this is not actually the case. The issues that a lasting power of attorney can raise are relevant to anyone.
A lasting power of attorney may be relevant to someone who already knows that they are likely to lose their mental capacity to a degenerative disease, but this can also happen in an instant through sudden medical conditions and accidents, and it is therefore important to be prepared.
At Loveday Solicitors, we can help you to put your Health and Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney together. During an initial consultation process, we can take you through what to expect and what your lasting power of attorney can cover. We can offer you advice on how to choose your attorney and what responsibilities you may want to give them. Once you have made all of your decisions, we can help to ensure that your Lasting Power of Attorney is put together correctly and submitted to the Office of the Public Guardian.
By ensuring that this is all done with the professional legal advice that Loveday Solicitors can offer you. You can help to avoid any delays in having your lasting power of attorney registered and certified. This means that it can come into effect when you need it to, and that all of your wishes have been covered thoroughly.
Conclusion
None of us like to think about the fact that we may lose the capacity to make decisions or communicate our wishes in the future. However, it is a sad reality for many people and so it is important that you are prepared for just such an eventuality.
By appointing a Lasting Power of Attorney, you can protect yourself and ensure that all your needs and wishes are followed. This means that even if you are in a situation where you are no longer able to make decisions for yourself, you will still be able to receive the care that you wanted, live where you want it, and receive the medical treatment that you want.
Our expert team of legal professionals at Lovedays Solicitors can help you to put your lasting power of attorney together and give yourself and those around you the ultimate peace of mind.
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