Universal Principles for Advance Care Planning

The Universal Principles for Advance Care Planning has been jointly published today by a coalition of 28 partner organisations, in response to the Care Quality Commission (CQC) report ‘Protect, Connect, Respect – decisions about living and dying well’ (2021).

The CQC report included recommendations for a consistent national approach to advance care planning (ACP), which should enable all people and health and care professionals involved to share the same understanding and expectations of ACP.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) set up a Ministerial Oversight Group to provide assurances that progress was being made towards implementing the recommendations of that report.

The guide aims to sets out 6 high-level principles for a personalised approach to advance care planning in England:

The six principles are:

1. The person is central to developing and agreeing their advance care plan including deciding who else should be involved in the process.
2. The person has personalised conversations about their future care focused on what matters to them and their needs.
3. The person agrees the outcomes of their advance care planning conversation through a shared decision making process in partnership with relevant professionals.
4. The person has a shareable advance care plan which records what matters to them, and their preferences and decisions about future care and treatment.
5. The person has the opportunity, and is encouraged, to review and revise their advance care plan.
6. Anyone involved in advance care planning is able to speak up if they feel that these universal principles are not being followed.

The document is for the person, those important to them, practitioners and organisations involved in supporting advance care planning conversations and honouring their outcomes. The publication identifies the benefits of ACP for all involved and outlines pre-requisites for good practice for each of these areas of Advance Care Planning.