A living will is a legal document that sets out your wishes for your healthcare when you cannot share them yourself. It guides your family and healthcare providers when you are not in a condition to make decisions or express your wishes.
The document gives instructions for not being kept alive through expensive life-support or other artificial medical interventions when there is no hope of recovery and death is inevitable – for example, if someone is in a coma, unconscious and terminally ill. This helps reduce the financial burden of advanced life support where there is no prospect of recovery.
It can also include your wishes for organ donation.
A living will can make it easier for your family to follow your wishes by limiting their options and taking a very difficult decision out of their hands.
A living will should ideally be separate from your will.
We can provide you with a template for a living will.