The publication, Your treatment and care: planning ahead for the LGBT community, explains the benefits of planning ahead for a time when you may be unable to make or communicate decisions about your own care and treatment, whether through illness or accident.
“We know through our work with organisations who support older LGBT people and through reports from the Care Quality Commission and Marie Curie earlier this year, that the LGBT community can face specific and significant barriers stopping them from getting the end of life care they want,” explained Usha Grieve, director of partnerships and information at Compassion in Dying.
“This can include healthcare professionals making assumptions about their preferences for care and a lack of understanding about what or who is important to them.
“That’s why we have produced this booklet. Planning ahead by making an advance decision, an advance statement or appointing a lasting power of attorney for health and welfare lets people responsible for your care know what and who is important to you and helps to ensure that your wishes are followed if you become unwell and are unable to express them yourself.
“While 82% of us have strong feelings about how we’d like to be treated at the end of life, just 4% have actually planned ahead and expressed our wishes in a legally binding way. We hope this pioneering resource will inform and empower the LGBT community to do so, helping to ensure that everyone gets the end of life care that’s right for them.”
The new publication can be downloaded from the Compassion in Dying website.
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