Your decision-making rights

Supported decision-making toolkit

Your decisions, your care - know your rights and options

Everyone has the right to make decisions about their life, including the support and services they receive from aged care. Some older people may want and need support to make these decisions. Explore the topics below to start.

Home Supported Decision Toolkit Your decision-making rights

Your decision-making rights

You have the right to make decisions about your life, including the support and services you receive in aged care. This means that you have the right to:

Make decisions on your own	Be provided with accessible services
Access information in a way you can understand	Be supported to make decisions, if you want to be

You are able to make decisions even if other people don’t agree with them. You are also able to make decisions that involve taking risks, so long as you have understood and accept those risks. If you have expressed your decision or preference verbally or non-verbally then no one can override it unless it is likely to cause immediate and severe risk of harm to yourself or to someone else. This is known as “Dignity of Risk”.

You are presumed to have the ability to make decisions under the new Aged Care Act. This means that everyone in the aged care system (which includes aged care providers, aged care needs assessors, and My Aged Care) must begin from the starting point that you are able to make decisions. Your right to make decisions has to be respected even if you have a diagnosis such as dementia or feel like it is harder to make decisions than it used to be.

In some cases, a legal process may determine that you are unable make certain types of decisions for a period of time. This is often called to as no longer having “decision-making capacity”. In these cases, a substitute decision-maker maker may be “activated” according to your state or territory legislation (often known as enduring guardians or attorneys). We talk more about substitute decision-makers on the section on “Getting support from other people” in this toolkit.

However, even if you have a substitute decision-maker appointed for some types of decisions, you still retain your rights to:

Be involved in decisions that the substitute decision-maker is appointed to make
Make all other decisions on your own, or with support if you want it
Access information in a way you can understand
Be provided with accessible services

Your decision-making rights

Supported decision-making toolkit

Your decisions, your care - know your rights and options

Your decision-making rights

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