Acting as a Health & Welfare Attorney

You must:

• follow any instructions the donor included in the LPA
• consider any preferences the donor included in the LPA
• help the donor make their own decisions as much as they can
• make any decisions in the donor’s best interests
• respect their human and civil rights

You must make the decisions yourself - you cannot ask someone to make them for you

If you’re not the only attorney

Check the LPA. It will tell you whether you must make decisions:

• ‘jointly’ - this means all the attorneys must agree
• ‘jointly and severally’ - this means you can make decisions together or on your own

The LPA may tell you to make some decisions ‘jointly’ and others ‘jointly and severally’

Health and welfare attorneys

As a health and welfare attorney, you make (or help the donor make) decisions about things like:

• daily routine, for example washing, dressing and eating
• medical care
• where the donor lives

You can only make decisions when the donor does not have mental capacity to make them.

You must tell people involved in the donor’s care when you start making decisions. This includes the donor’s:

• friends and family
• doctor and other healthcare staff
• care workers, social worker and other social care staff

You may need to use your lasting power of attorney to prove to staff that you can act for the donor.

Refusing or consenting to treatment

Check the lasting power of attorney (LPA) for instructions about refusing or consenting to treatment.

You’ll need to:

• show the LPA to care staff
• sign medical consent forms
• make decisions in the donor’s best interests

You cannot always make decisions about the donor’s medical treatment, for example if the donor’s made a living will or has been sectioned.