Zach Moss
20 September 2013
Form filling can be daunting, but not with our help!
The Office of Public Guardian, the Government department responsible for LPAs, has recently made it possible for us all to make and register our LPAs online. Once completed online they can be printed so that you, your attorneys and certificate providers can sign the hard copy. Visit the Government Website on Lasting Power of Attorneys to see the form online.
The online form makes the whole process so much easier as you are alerted at various stages to potential pitfalls so that you can avoid them before signing the LPA. Prior to the online version, we found that the lengthy paper guidance documents provided information that many people didn’t understand, or did not even read. We believe that the online form will make it much easier for our volunteers and others to support older people to fill them in and ensure that individual’s wishes and preferences are respected.
At Compassion in Dying we have also produced some short facts sheets that may help the process seem less daunting:
In our form-filling training module we look at both the online and paper versions of the form to ensure that people are comfortable with each and understand the advantages of both the Advance Decision and The Health and Personal Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney. As both tools are relatively new, many of the older people we are trying to reach are not aware of either. The Health and Personal Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney is a significant change to the old Enduring Power of Attorney System and we are working hard to ensure that as many older people in East London are aware of this and can have their wishes for medical treatment respected should they lose the ability to communicate. If you want to learn more about what we do or perhaps you want to book a training session with us then please do visit our “Contact Us” page. We’d love to hear from you.