Anticipatory Care Planning in care homes

Anticipatory Care Planning in care homes offers residents the opportunity to discuss and record what matters to them and helps staff provide person-centred care.

Anticipatory Care Planning (ACP) supports people living in care homes and their families to have open and honest discussions about what matters to them, their health and wellbeing and wishes for the future. The Scottish Government Healthcare framework for Older People living in Care Homes recommends that an ACP conversation is offered to every person living in a care home in Scotland.

Why does ACP matter for people living in care homes?
- Moving into a care home is recognised as a potential trigger for thinking about an ACP.
- As a resident's conditions change, good quality ACP can help the multidisciplinary team provide care in accordance with their and their family's wishes.
- We know that ACP can avoid unnecessary admissions to hospital. This supports people to be cared for and, when the time comes, to die in the place of their choosing.
Resources on using ACP in care homes

Garscadden Burn Medical Practice in Glasgow implemented a new ACP approach across two care homes and this is now being scaled up in a larger area of Glasgow HSCP. You can read our case study on this work here.

Lothian Quality have published a local care homes QI toolkit which focuses on Anticipatory Care Planning and Multidisciplinary Team (MDT) working. You can read more about Edinburgh HSCP’s story and the impact of this work in our case study, or find out more about the 7-steps to ACP in the context of Covid-19.

Lothian Quality Care Homes ACP and MDTs Planning QI Toolkit

HIS (2019) Edinburgh HSCP: Improving ACP in Care Homes

7 steps to ACP: Creating Covid-19 relevant ACPs in Care Homes - Implementation Guide and Resources