KEY POINTS

• Advance care planning is an important end of life care intervention that helps people at risk of losing their mental capacity or their ability to communicate plan for their future care and support needs, including medical treatment.
• It helps people get the treatment they want during the final stage of their life and increases their chance to die in their preferred place of death. It benefits the mental health of the person caring for them.
• Advance care planning is likely to be cost-effective. This is due to improvements in carer’s quality of life, reductions in the use of aggressive life-sustaining treatment and more people dying at their place of residence rather than in hospitals.
• Future research needs to address gaps in implementation knowledge of advance care planning.
• Implementing advance care planning effectively is challenging and requires substantial organisation and system-wide changes.