Living Wills & Advance Decisions.

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Living Wills & Advance Decisions in Exeter, Cullompton, and Tiverton.

At Gorman Legal, we are committed to helping you make informed decisions about your future healthcare. Our Living Wills & Advance Decisions Services in Exeter, Cullompton, Tiverton, and across Devon, provide guidance on creating legal documents that ensure your medical treatment preferences are respected if you are unable to make decisions yourself.

What is a Living Will & Advance Decision?

A Living Will, also known as an Advance Decision, is a legal document that outlines your preferences for medical treatment in the event that you are unable to communicate or make decisions due to illness or incapacity. It allows you to specify the types of medical treatment you do or do not want to receive, ensuring that your wishes are followed.

Our Living Wills & Advance Decisions Services

  1. Drafting Advance Decisions
    We assist in drafting clear and legally valid Advance Decisions that specify your preferences for medical treatment. This includes decisions about life-sustaining treatments, such as resuscitation and artificial nutrition.
  2. Ensuring Legal Validity
    We ensure that your Advance Decision meets all legal requirements and is correctly executed to ensure it will be recognised and respected by healthcare professionals.
  3. Reviewing and Updating Existing Documents
    If you already have a Living Will or Advance Decision in place, we can review and update it to reflect any changes in your preferences or circumstances, ensuring that it remains accurate and effective.
  4. Providing Guidance on Making Decisions
    We offer guidance on making informed decisions about your healthcare preferences, including understanding the implications of different treatment options and the legal aspects of Advance Decisions.
  5. Communicating Your Wishes
    We provide advice on how to communicate your Advance Decision to your healthcare providers, family members, and anyone else who may need to be aware of your wishes.

Why Choose Us for your Living Will or Advance Decision?

Client-Centred and Respectful Approach
We understand that making decisions about your future medical care is a deeply personal and sensitive matter. Our service is designed to prioritise your wishes, ensuring your Living Will (Advance Decision) is fully reflective of your values and beliefs.

Expert Legal Guidance
With extensive experience in drafting Living Wills, our team provides reliable legal advice to ensure your document is clear, legally binding, and effective. We help you navigate complex medical and legal issues, so your decisions about future treatment are understood and respected.

Personalised to Your Circumstances
Your preferences regarding medical treatment are unique to you. We take the time to understand your specific wishes, ensuring that your Advance Decision accurately reflects your personal choices about life-sustaining treatment and other critical care decisions.

Compassionate Support Throughout
Discussing future healthcare decisions can be emotionally challenging. Our team provides a compassionate and supportive environment, guiding you through the process with care, sensitivity, and respect. We ensure your Advance Decision is completed with as little stress as possible, offering peace of mind for you and your loved ones.

Get In Touch

Planning for your future healthcare is an important step in ensuring that your wishes are respected. At Gorman Legal, we are here to provide expert guidance and support throughout the process of creating a Living Will or Advance Decision. Contact us today to discuss your needs and how we can assist you.

To make a free, no obligation enquiry today please call us on 01884 216106 or send a free online enquiry and we’ll call you back.

Free Enquiry

FAQs about Living Wills.

A Living Will, also known as an Advance Decision, is a legal document that allows you to set out your wishes for the refusal of medical treatment in the future.

Your Living Will would give instructions to your doctors if there came a time when you were unable to make decisions or communicate your own wishes.

You can use a Living Will to tell your doctors:

  • The types of treatment you don’t want to receive.
  • When you’d want life-sustaining treatment to be withdrawn.
  • Not to resuscitate you in specific circumstances.

A Living Will has to be properly drawn up to ensure that it is legally valid. Provided that it is, then it must be respected by those giving you medical care.

If you want some control over how you’re treated if you lose capacity, it’s important to consider making a Living Will.

You’ll need to think about:

  • The circumstances in which you wouldn’t want to receive treatment.
  • Whether you’d want specific treatment or medication even if it could shorten your life.
  • Whether you should make a Lasting Power of Attorney for your healthcare.

You may also want to discuss matters with a healthcare professional who knows about your medical history and family so that they understand your wishes.

Yes. You can expressly state that treatment is to be withdrawn or not given at all in specific circumstances.

You can’t use a Living Will to ask for specific treatment to be given and you can’t ask for your life to be ended due to the laws against assisted suicide and euthanasia.

A Lasting Power of Attorney for health and welfare allows you to nominate a specific person to make decisions on your behalf about your healthcare if you’ve lost mental capacity.

You cant’ nominate someone to make decisions in a Living Will. A Living Will has to refer to specific types of treatment and the circumstances in which you refuse treatment.

A Lasting Power of Attorney for health and welfare can cover a wider range of decisions rather than just those relating to the refusal of treatment. For example, you can give a specific person the ability to decide:

  • Where you should live
  • Your day-to-day care, including diet and dress
  • Who you may have contact with
  • Arrangements for dental and optical treatment
  • Assessments for and provision of community care services
  • Whether you should take part in social activities or leisure activities
  • Your personal correspondence and papers
  • Rights of access to your personal information
  • Complaints about your care and treatment.

If you’re making a Living Will and a Lasting Power of Attorney for health and welfare, it’s important that they don’t invalidate each other by containing conflicting provisions.

We have years of experience in helping clients to plan for end of life decisions and healthcare arrangements. We can advise you on what can and what can’t appear in a Living Will to ensure that it is legally valid and won’t be disregarded.

Call us today on 01884 216106 or use our Free Enquiry Form.

Make a free enquiry today