Documents for Dying – Part 3 – Hierarchy


Documents for Dying – Part 3 – Hierarchy [1]

‘Hierarchy of Decision Makers’:
Process for making non-urgent treatment decisions

Advance Care Planning: A Patient’s Guide Version 3
WA Department of Health 2017

If you are 18 years of age or older and capable of making your own decisions, you can make your own treatment decisions (consent to or refuse a treatment). If you are unable to make decisions for yourself and non-urgent treatment is needed, treatment decisions will be made according to the ‘hierarchy of decision makers’ below.

If you do not have an appropriate or valid Advance Health Directive, the health professional will seek a treatment decision from the first person on the list who is 18 years of age or older, has full legal capacity and is willing and available to make the decision. This person is also known as the ‘person responsible’.

If urgent treatment is required to save your life or prevent unnecessary pain, health professionals can provide this treatment without seeking consent, however, they will need to seek consent for ongoing treatment.

[1] The Pure Land of the Indestructible Buddha Incorporated 17 April 2021. Edited by Len Warren.

Download this page as PDF