An important conversation
March 10, 2026
16-22 March is Advance Care Planning Week. Its theme Your story, your choice emphasises that every person is unique when it comes to their feelings about end-of-life care.
Advance Care Planning Week highlights the importance of planning for the kind of end-of-life care you want and making sure that your family and health care professionals understand your wishes.
Advance care planning involves having important conversations with your loved ones about the things that matter to you now, and when you are dying. Typically, this will include medical treatments you do and do not wish to have.
The next step is to formalise an ‘advance care directive’, which is the name of the document that records your wishes. It will be referred to if you become unable to communicate your wishes yourself.
It is recommended that people seek professional legal, medical and/or financial advice when planning their advance care directive.
It’s important that this document is kept in an easy-to-find place in your home. You should give copies to your family and your medical team, and your care provider.
End-of-life planning at Anglicare
Anglicare’s statewide Aged Care Services supports 1,770 older Tasmanians to remain living independently in their own homes.
A project that focuses on ensuring people are supported well in the last months of their life began last year. It uses resources developed by a government-funded project called ELDAC (End of Life Directions for Aged Care.)
“The project is preparing our team members to deliver high-quality, sensitive care to people who are nearing the end of their lives,” explains project manager Lydia Stefankowski.
Dying can be a sensitive topic for many people, and we understand that it is intertwined with grief.
We want to approach it in a meaningful way that results in positive outcomes for people and their family members. We work closely with specialist palliative care services to ensure that wherever possible, the people we support who want to die at home are able to achieve this goal.
More information
Find out more about advance care planning and National Advance Care Planning Week here.
The End of Life Directions for Aged Care (ELDAC) website has sections for both aged care staff and friends and family members.
The Tasmanian Department of Health has an advance care directive form for downloading here.
The new Support at Home program may offer additional funding for people who are in the last three months of their life.
