Thinking Ahead

Thinking Ahead: Supporting People to Plan into the Future.

This new resource has been developed in U.K. by Strathcarron Hospice and Talking Mats to help people with advanced illness or long term conditions to think ahead and plan for the future.

It consists of a booklet and 3 topic symbol sets:

• Affairs
• Care/treatment
• Personal values

It can be used to help people have conversations about:
• the extent to which their personal affairs are sorted;
• what they would or would not consider about future treatments and care;
• what is going well/not going well in relation to their personal values.

This is an advanced Talking Mats set, so is only available for purchase if you hold a certificate for the Foundation Training. 

Why Advance Care Planning?

It is widely recognised that having discussions about end of life issues can enable people to remain in control for longer and help them to identify the care and support they need and want as they approach death. In spite of this, in Scotland:

• 74% of people have not discussed what their wishes would be if they did not have long to live
• 79% of people don’t have any written plans for their end of life care, financial wishes or funeral plans
• Only 35% of people have written a Will

It can sometimes be difficult for people to start conversations about planning for end of life and people this is exacerbated if people have specific difficulties communicating their thoughts and feelings because of symptoms, fatigue and emotional factors. Before initiating this type of conversation it can be helpful to check the extent of a person’s understanding of their illness and whether or not they want to talk about the future.

The importance of having conversations and making plans for end of life has been highlighted as being relevant for people in the early stages of life limiting illness as well as for those nearing the end of life. There is evidence that people who have Advance or Anticipatory Care Plans in place are more likely to receive the care that they want and treatment can be less invasive. ACP is a process rather than a one-off conversation. It is acknowledged that ACP discussions should take place in appropriate settings with sufficient time to enable to people to consider and weigh up different options. ACP should also be developed in line with peoples’ personal values and goals (Sinuff Tasnim, et al.(2015) “Improving end-of-life communication and decision making: the development of a conceptual framework and quality indicators.” Journal of pain and symptom management 49.6 2015): 1070-1080).

The information above is from www.talkingmats.com 

Read Lorraine's Story, a blog by Talking Mats Ltd in U.K. 

NOTE RE: AUSTRALIAN APPLICATION:  A few of the topic cards may use British vocabulary e.g Care Home. In our discussions with practitioners in this area they felt that  there were few issues or problems.