Lasting Power of Attorney for Health & Welfare
from £49.99+VAT

Everybody who makes a ‘Lasting Power of Attorney - Property & Financial Affairs’ (‘LPA-PA’) should also make a ‘Lasting Power of Attorney - Health & Welfare’ (‘LPA-HW’):

An LPA-HW allows you to appoint one or more Attorneys to make decisions on your behalf about your personal welfare and healthcare, including whether to give or refuse consent to medical treatment on your behalf and deciding where you live.

These decisions can only be taken on your behalf when you lack the capacity to make them yourself, for example if you are ill, unconscious or because of the onset of a condition such as dementia.

What if I don’t have an LPA-HW?

The consequences of not having an LPA-HW are similar to those of not having an (LPA-PA):

If for any reason you suddenly become unable to make your own decisions, e.g.

• You suffer an accident and are confined to bed or hospital
• You suffer a more serious accident which permanently incapacitates you
• You become mentally incapacitated as a result of old age or for some other reason

... then an application has to be made (by a relative or other person close to you) to the Court of Protection.

This can take up to 10 months and cost up to £1,000 (or even more) to process - during which time no important decisions regarding your personal welfare and healthcare could be made other than by a doctor treating you - and the person eventually appointed to make decisions on your behalf is not only unlikely to be who you would have chosen, but may even be a Court Official - who can (and will) charge every time he/she acts for you.

To be clear: WITHOUT an LPA-HW, a husband, wife, civil partner, COULD NOT act act on your behalf, and WOULD HAVE TO go through the above process.

HOWEVER, if you do have an LPA-HW, your chosen representatives can make decisions for you straight away if you become unable to make them yourself.

Note that you must be mentally capable to make an LPA-HW. Therefore - just like a Will (and an LPA-PA) - if you don’t have one, then by the time you really need one it’s too late.

Exactly what can my Attorneys do?

What your Attorney(s) can do will depend on the powers that you give them when making your LPA-HW.

If you include no restrictions in your LPA-HW, then your Attorney(s) will be able to make any decisions regarding your personal welfare that you would have been able to make, such as :-

• giving or refusing consent to particular types of health care, including medical treatment decisions
• you staying in your own home, perhaps with help and support from social services
• you moving into residential housing and choosing the right care home for you
• more day-to-day issues, for example about your diet, your dress or your daily routine

However, they cannot just do whatever they like. They will only be able to make decisions that are in your best interests and they will only be able to make them if they are able to establish that you are unable to make them yourself. They must follow the principles of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 Code of Practice at all times when acting.

You can also specify yourself what your Attorney(s) can do. All you have to do is specify ‘restrictions and/or conditions’ when creating the LPA-HW - for example, you may include a restriction that your Attorney(s) cannot make decisions about the treatment of a particular illness you may have.

Additionally, you are able to specify in your LPA-HW whether or not your Attorney(s) are permitted to give or refuse consent to life-sustaining treatment on your behalf. There is a special section for this in the LPA-HW document, which you sign separately when signing the LPA-HW.

What are the safeguards?

When choosing an Attorney, it is important that you are confident that they know what you want and that you are comfortable that they will be making decisions on your behalf. However, there are safeguards to protect you. Safeguards already built in to an LPA-HW include :-

• you are assumed to have the capacity to make your own decisions (i.e. the LPA-HW cannot be used) unless it is established that you lack capacity.
• the requirement that the LPA-HW must be registered with the Office of the Public Guardian before use.
• the requirement to identify someone to provide a Certificate confirming, amongst other things, that you understand the purpose of an LPA-HW and the scope of powers you are giving to your Attorney(s).
• that certain persons chosen by you called people to be told are notified before registration of the LPA-HW.
• the requirement for the signatures of you and your and Attorney(s) to be witnessed.
• the right of specific people (you, the Attorney(s) and named persons) to object to registration of the LPA-HW.
• your Attorney(s) must have regard to the Code of Practice which provides guidance on the Mental Capacity Act 2005. The Code makes it clear that Attorneys must always act in your best interests.

What if I already have a Living Will?

If you made an ‘Advance Decision’ (sometimes known as a living will ) before 1st October 2007 then it may still be valid. However, you should check that it meets the new rules (i.e. the Mental Capacity Act 2005) - particularly if it deals with life-sustaining treatment. More detailed guidance on this is available at www.dh.gov.uk/consent.

It is highly likely that the best thing for you to do is make an LPA-HW and then, if you are satisfied that it meets all of your requirements, destroy all copies of your old ‘Advance Decision’.

How much does an LPA-HW cost and how do I make one?

The cost of an LPA-HW at tenminutewill.co.uk is £49.99+VAT for a Single LPA-HW, and £79.99+VAT for a pair of LPA-HWs.

There are discounts for buying two or more products together:

• a £10+VAT discount if you buy a Will and an LPA-HW together (or if you buy an LPA-PA and an LPA-HW together)
• a £20+VAT discount if you buy all 3 products together (Will, LPA-PA and LPA-HW).

Please click here for our full Price List.

How to make an LPA-HW at TenMinuteWill :

1. If you’ve already made a Will at our site, login and select the ‘Make a Lasting Power of Attorney - Property and Financial Affairs’ option.
   1. When you get to the LPA-PA section, enter all of the details required to draft an LPA-PA.
   2. Don’t worry - if you don’t actually want to purchase an LPA-PA then you won’t have to. However, the details you enter are copied into your LPA-HW so none of the effort required is wasted time.
   3. When you have finished the LPA-PA, select the option to create an LPA-HW.
2. If you haven’t already made a Will at our site, you have 2 options:
   1. If you want to make a Will and an LPA-HW, click here
      1. Draft the Will
      2. When you get to the LPA-PA section, enter all of the details required to draft an LPA-PA.
      3. Don’t worry - if you don’t actually want to purchase an LPA-PA then you won’t have to. However, the details you enter are copied into your LPA-HW so none of the effort required is wasted time.
      4. When you have finished the LPA-PA, select the option to create an LPA-HW.
   2. If you want to make just an LPA-HW, click here
      1. Enter all of the details required to draft an LPA-PA.
      2. Don’t worry - if you don’t actually want to purchase an LPA-PA then you won’t have to. However, the details you enter are copied into your LPA-HW so none of the effort required is wasted time.
      3. When you have finished the LPA-PA, select the option to create an LPA-HW.
3. We then take all of the pain out of the process of drafting the LPA-HW, condensing it into a few simple questions for you to answer and then creating your LPA-HW document for you based on your answers.

Once you’ve created the LPA-HW, all you have to do is print it out and then you and your Attorneys plus one ‘certificate provider’ must sign it in the presence of at least 1 witness. We send you full ‘step by step’ instructions for this process and, just like a Will and an LPA-PA, you do not need a Solicitor to carry it out.

Finally, the LPA-HW cannot be used until it has been registered at the Office of the Public Guardian (the ‘OPG’).

There is a fee to pay to the OPG (not to us) for this of £92 per LPA.

If you are on low income or benefits or in some similar situation, you may be able to apply for a 50% or even 100% reduction of this fee. See here for further details.

Registering the LPA-HW is your responsibility (although, to help you, your LPA document will include the necessary pages) and can be done at any time between the LPA-HW being made and the moment that it is required to be used. Therefore the registration fee is not a cost you need to incur straight away - indeed if the LPA-HW is never required to be used then it need never be incurred at all.

That’s all there is to it, and as an added bonus you get unlimited free re-writes of your LPA-HW for 60 days once you’ve paid for it.

If you want to read about Lasting Powers of Attorney in more detail, please download our ‘Why Make an LPA?’ document and our ‘The LPA-PA and The LPA-HW’ document.

Acknowledgement: Some of the information on this page has been based on short extracts from ‘A guide for people who want to make a Health & Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney’ produced by the Office of the Public Guardian (Crown copyrighted and hence "may be reproduced free of charge in any format or medium provided it is reproduced accurately and not used in a misleading context".)