Advance Care Directives Act 2013

Subject to this Act and to any provision of the advance care directive, a substitute decision‑maker appointed under an advance care directive may make any decision that the person who gave the advance care directive could have lawfully made in respect of the following areas:

health care (other than a kind of health care declared by the regulations to be excluded from the ambit of this paragraph);

residential and accommodation arrangements;

personal affairs.

Nothing in subsection (1) authorises a substitute decision‑maker to make a decision of a kind that requires the substitute decision‑maker to have been given the person's power of attorney unless the required power of attorney has in fact been given to the substitute decision‑maker.

An advance care directive does not authorise a substitute decision‑maker to perform functions that the person who gave the advance care directive has as a trustee or personal representative of another.

Despite any provision of an advance care directive to the contrary, an advance care directive does not authorise a substitute decision‑maker to refuse the following:

the administration of drugs to relieve pain or distress;

the natural provision of food and liquids by mouth.

Despite any provision of an advance care directive to the contrary, an advance care directive does not authorise a substitute decision-maker to make a decision, or to otherwise act in a manner, that is inconsistent with a request for voluntary assisted dying made by the person who gave the advance care directive.