Vic enquiry into Powers of Attorney
Posted
by DPS
The Parliament of Victoria Law Reform Committee is holding an inquiry into Powers of Attorney. The three Powers of Attorney which were being considered were:
- Enduring Power of Attorney – Financial
- Enduring Power of Guardianship
- Enduring Power of Attorney – Medical treatment
Aged and Community Services Victoria (ACCV) has made ten recommendations to the enquiry, calling for:
- Greater public and professional education and consultation about Powers of Attorney and related advocacy issues to reduce confusion.
- Providing delegable authorities so that a person who has been entrusted to make general care and lifestyle decisions (via and Enduring Power of Guardianship) has a managed financial capacity to do so.
- Consolidating three Enduring Powers of Attorney instruments into one instrument, with clear demarcations between the authorities could be very useful.
- An accessible register for all Powers of Attorney. An expiry date for non-active Enduring Powers of Attorney (e.g. three years) would also be useful as a safeguard.
- Using specialised memory clinics as the optimum approach to assess capacity when dementia is the pertinent health issue.
- Developing better screening tools to assess capacity.
- Paying greater attention to the important issue of who has right of access to personal and health information.
A copy of the submission is available on the ACCV website http://www.accv.com.au
