Health and Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney
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Health & Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney
Ian Winterbotham is back, this time to talk about a Health & Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA).
What is a Health & Welfare Lasting Powe r of Attorney?
The first thing to say is that there are two types of Lasting Powers of Attorney, also known as LPAs. The first is a Property & Finance Lasting Power of Attorney, and it deals with your property and financial assets. We’ll address this in a separate podcast.
Separate to that is a Health & Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney. It’s a legal document where you, as the donor, appoint someone you trust to make decisions on your behalf regarding health treatments and personal care, in the event you should lose the mental capacity to make those decisions for yourself.
A Health & Welfare LPA allows a trusted person – your attorney – to speak as if they are you, but only if you are unable to express yourself in any way at all.
What decisions can a Health & Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney make. What decisions can they not make?
In addition to decisions about health treatments and personal care, the attorney might be involved in decisions related to daily routines such as washing, dressing, eating, medical care and other aspects of the donor’s wellbeing.
They can’t make decisions about finance and property unless you have allowed that through the other type of Lasting Power of Attorney.
Who can be a Health & Welfare attorney?
Anyone who is 18 years or older and has mental capacity to make decisions can be appointed as a Health & Welfare attorney.
What happens if I don’t have a Health & Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney?
Well, imagine yourself in a few decades time. You might be getting a little bit confused, and you could be vulnerable to decisions being made by a third party.
Someone you don’t really know could be making decisions about your long-term care, and that could have a knock-on effect on where you live and whether you continue living in your own home.
That’s one example. There must be hundreds of others, but it’s a really powerful one, isn’t it?
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What if the donor is refusing or consenting to treatment? What options do I have?
If you’re the attorney, you must allow the donor to make their own decisions. If they can express themselves in any way, you are not legally entitled to override them.
What can I use the donor’s money for?
This presupposes that you are registered as an attorney under a Property & Finance LPA. In that case, you can use the donor’s money for their care and medical expenses, for any other expenses or items that might make them more comfortable, or regular birthday presents to nephews and nieces, etc.
But the donor’s money must always be used for the benefit of the donor. The idea is that it’s what the donor would have wanted. It’s not there for you to make decisions unilaterally about what the money should be used for.
How do I get a Health & Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney? How do I become one?
If the donor chooses you as an attorney and makes an application to the Office of the Public Guardian, we can discuss your options and take your instructions.
We will then prepare the application and send the document for you to sign. One of our consultants can also act as a certificate provider, which makes the application process easier.
After you, the attorneys and the certificate provider have all signed, we can send the document to the Office of the Public Guardian to be registered.
How much does it cost to set up a Health & Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney?
We would charge £350 plus a fee of £82 for a single Lasting Power of Attorney. Then you need to budget for a further registration fee of £82 for each Lasting Power of Attorney.
You might also want to instruct the Property & Finance Lasting Power of Attorney at the same time. In that case we could do the two documents for £550 plus VAT together, with further registration fees of £164.
What else do we need to know about a Health & Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney?
Well, this is a very brief guide and I hope it’s helpful in giving an initial understanding of what a Health & Welfare LPA is and how it works. There are options relating to life-sustaining treatment and you can choose one or more people to be your current attorney(s) and others to step in if the current attorney(s) cannot act.
We can discuss these options with you. You can learn more about Lasting Powers of Attorney, the two types and the choices you have on our website.
Frequently Asked LPA Questions
A “lasting power of attorney” is a legal document in which you appoint someone to make decisions on your behalf. The person so appointed is referred to as an “attorney”.
There are two types of lasting power of attorney, a “health and welfare lasting power of attorney” and a “property and financial affairs lasting power of attorney”. In the case of a health and welfare lasting power of attorney, the attorney is granted the power to make decisions about your health and welfare.
The sort of decisions an attorney can make will depend upon what powers they have been given in the health and welfare lasting power of attorney. An attorney may be given the power to make decisions in relation to any or all of the following matters:
- What medical treatment you should have or not have.
- Whether you should continue to live in your own home or move into a residential care home.
- What type of health care you should receive.
- What diet you should have.
- How you should be dressed; and
- What your daily routine should consist of.
Any decisions made by an attorney should be made in the best interests of the “donor” (the person who made the lasting power of attorney).
A health and welfare lasting power of attorney does not give your attorney the power to make decisions relating to your property and financial affairs. If you would like your attorney or another person to take responsibility for your property and financial affairs a property and financial affairs Lasting Power of Attorney will be needed.
A person must have the “mental capacity” to make a health and welfare lasting power of attorney for it to be valid. They must also be at least 18 years old.
For a person to have the required mental capacity they must be able to understand and remember information for long enough and be able to weigh up information to enable them to decide. They must also be able to communicate in some manner.
A health and welfare lasting power of attorney cannot be used until it has been registered with the “Office of the Public Guardian” and until you have lost the mental capacity to make your own decisions.
