About Enduring Guardianship
An Enduring Guardianship is a document authorising someone to make lifestyle, health and medical decisions for you.
This could be if you become ill or injured and are unable to make such decisions for yourself.
An Enduring Guardian can influence or decide:
- where you live
- what health and personal services you receive
- the medical treatment you get.
The person you appoint should be someone you trust and who understands the importance of their responsibilities
Legal Answers has information on choosing, appointing and revoking an Enduring Guardian.
For more information on eligibility and how to appoint an enduring guardian, visit Service NSW.
Making directions
You can give directions to your Enduring Guardian about how you want them to perform their role.
An example of a direction you may want to give could be that they seek advice from your doctor or medical specialists before making certain decisions.
You can also make an Advance Care Directive. This is a separate document to help inform what lifestyle and health decisions are to be followed should you not have capacity to make them for yourself.
About Enduing Guardianship
An Enduring Guardian is the person you legally appoint to make decisions about your health, lifestyle and accommodation in the event you can't make these decisions for yourself. This could be if you become ill or injured.
The Enduring Guardian you authorise in your Enduring Guardianship document can influence or decide:
- where you live
- what health and personal services you receive
- the medical treatment you get
The person you appoint should be someone you trust and who understands your wishes and the importance of their responsibilities.
You should choose someone you trust such as a spouse, family member or friend.
If you don't have an Enduring Guardian and decisions need to be made on your behalf, a court or tribunal may need to appoint someone to make decisions for you. This is called a Guardianship Order.
It is essential the person you appoint:
- is willing to take on the role
- can make decisions in difficult and emotional circumstances
- understands your needs, wishes, values and beliefs
- is easy to contact when decisions need to be made
- understands they won’t be paid to undertake this role.
Who can't be an Enduring Guardian
- You can't appoint someone who, in a professional or administrative capacity, is responsible for or involved in providing you with medical services, accommodation or any other services to support you in your activities of daily living for fee or reward. (Note: if your family member or friend acts as your carer and is in receipt of the Centrelink carer payment, this does not prevent them from being appointed as your Enduring Guardian).
- You can't appoint either the Public Guardian or NSW Trustee and Guardian as your Enduring Guardian.
There may be a time in your life when you need someone to make important decisions for you. This could be due to a temporary or permanent loss of decision-making ability from illness, injury or disability – this can happen at any time in your life.
Your Enduring Guardian only starts making decisions for you when you are unable to.
A doctor or specialist can be called upon if it is uncertain whether your Enduring Guardian should start making decisions. The appointment continues for as long as you need it unless:
- you revoke or cancel it while you have mental capacity to do so
- your Enduring Guardian resigns from the role, dies or is unable to carry out the role
- the appointment is changed or revoked by the Guardianship Division of NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) or the NSW Supreme Court.
You can provide information to help your Enduring Guardian know how they should use their authority.
For example, you might direct them to seek advice from your doctor or medical specialists before they make certain decisions.
It’s important to remember that directions or limits should be applied thoughtfully as they can remove flexibility in decision making.
Your Enduring Guardian only makes decisions in the areas you choose, including:
- where you live and the services you might receive
- healthcare, medical and dental treatment you receive.
They can also:
- apply for extra decision-making authority if circumstances are more complex or you need extra support
- consult on decisions during your end-of-life stage and advance care plans.
They can't make decisions about:
- your money
- who you vote for
- marriage on your behalf
- anything that is against the law
- saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to special treatments, such as those that will prevent you having children, terminating a pregnancy, restrictive practices (unless specifically authorised in the Enduring Guardian document), or new treatments that have not yet been reviewed by medical industry experts.
- making or changing your advance care directive and making or changing your Will.
You can also make an Advance Care Directive. This is a separate document to help inform what lifestyle and health decisions are to be followed should you not have capacity to make them for yourself.
Types of Enduring Guardians
You can appoint just one person to be your enduring guardian, but its always good to have a backup in case your enduring guardian isn’t in a position to take on the role, or to continue in the role.
If you are appointing more than one guardian, there are two ways you can do this – by appointing multiple enduring guardians or by appointing a substitute enduring guardian, in addition to your first appointed enduring guardian.
You can appoint more than one Enduring Guardian, but you need to outline how you want them to make decisions – together (jointly), separately (severally) or both of these (jointly and severally).
Jointly | Enduring Guardians have the same decision-making areas and need to agree and act together when making decisions. Make sure you have considered how you want your Enduring Guardians to make decisions if one is unable to carry out the role. |
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Severally | Enduring Guardians can work separately with the same or different decision-making areas. They can make decisions without needing to agree or act together. Think about the possibility that Enduring Guardians can carry on making decisions if the other one(s) becomes unable to make decisions for you. |
Jointly and severally | Enduring Guardians are appointed with the same decision-making areas and they can work together or separately when they make decisions for you. |
You can appoint another person as a substitute Enduring Guardian who only makes decisions for you if your original guardian is no longer able to.
If you have not appointed a substitute, you no longer have capacity and your Enduring Guardian is no longer able to make decisions for you, anyone concerned for your welfare can make an application to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) to decide who your guardian should be.
Support for guardians
NSW Trustee and Guardian offers support services if you've legally been appointed as an Enduring Guardian. We can help you understand your role and responsibilities and provide advice and resources.
We can also provide free community education sessions about guardianship in your area, on request.
Resources
Learn more about Enduring Guardianship.
Enduring Guardianship handbook
Our guide answers common questions about Enduring Guardianship, including what Enduring Guardianship is, why it's important and who you should choose.
Contact NSW Trustee and Guardian Wills
For Wills and estate planning enquiries, call:
1300 102 030 Monday to Friday from 9am-5pm.
More options to contact us.