title: Advance Care Planning.
abstract: Advance care planning should be available to all patients with chronic kidney disease, including end-stage kidney disease on renal replacement therapy. Advance care planning is a process of patient-centred discussion, ideally involving family/significant others, to assist the patient to understand how their illness might affect them, identify their goals and establish how medical treatment might help them to achieve these. An Advance Care Plan is only one useful outcome from the Advance Care Planning process, the education of patient and family around prognosis and treatment options is likely to be beneficial whether or not a plan is written or the individual loses decision making capacity at the end of life. Facilitating Advance Care Planning discussions requires an understanding of their purpose and communication skills which need to be taught. Advance Care Planning needs to be supported by effective systems to enable the discussions and any resulting Plans to be used to aid subsequent decision making.
authors.affiliation: Department of Renal Medicine, Auckland City Hospital, Auckland, New Zealand.
authors.forename: Elizabeth J
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Stallworthy