Where to Store Your Advance Care Directive in Tasmania

The Storage Problem No One Warns You About

Tasmanians spend hours drafting their Advance Care Directive, getting it witnessed correctly, and registering it with TASCAT — then file the original in a drawer that no one else can access. When the medical emergency arrives, the ambulance crew has no idea the directive exists, the hospital admitting team cannot locate it, and the default position kicks in: full active treatment, including CPR and intubation, regardless of what the person wrote down.

A perfectly drafted, legally valid ACD is worthless if the people who need it cannot find it when it matters.

The Four-Layer Storage System

Effective ACD storage in Tasmania requires redundancy. No single storage method is sufficient on its own, because medical emergencies happen in different settings — at home, in a GP clinic, during an ambulance transfer, at a hospital you have never visited, or in residential aged care.

Layer 1: TASCAT Registration

Registering your ACD with the Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal creates a permanent, searchable record in TASCAT's ACD register. Registration is free and can be done by post or through the TASCAT portal.

Why this matters: any Tasmanian hospital can contact TASCAT to verify whether a registered ACD exists for a patient. This is particularly valuable when you present at a hospital other than your usual one — for example, during a medical emergency while travelling within Tasmania.

Registration does not replace physical distribution. TASCAT is not an instant-access database that paramedics can query mid-transport. It is a verification mechanism: it confirms the directive exists and provides a registered copy on request.

Layer 2: My Health Record

Uploading your ACD to your federal My Health Record (through your MyGov account) is the single most effective storage step you can take. My Health Record is accessible to authorised healthcare providers anywhere in Australia — not just in Tasmania.

When you present at an emergency department, the admitting team can pull your My Health Record within minutes. If your ACD is uploaded, it appears alongside your medical history, allergies, and current medications.

To upload:

1. Log in to My Health Record via myGov (my.gov.au)
2. Navigate to "Documents" and select "Upload a document"
3. Choose your scanned ACD (PDF format)
4. Categorise it as an Advance Care Planning document

If you have appointed an Enduring Guardian, you can also link them as a representative on your My Health Record, giving them access to view your health records and communicate with clinical teams.

Layer 3: GP and Healthcare Providers

Give your GP a physical copy and ask them to flag it in your patient file. Most GP practices in Tasmania use clinical software (Best Practice, Medical Director) that allows them to record an advance directive alert — a pop-up notification that appears whenever any practitioner at the clinic opens your file.

Also provide copies to:

• Any specialist managing an ongoing condition (cardiologist, oncologist, neurologist)
• Your residential aged care facility, if applicable (the facility must record it in your care plan)
• Your local hospital, if you have a regular relationship with a particular ward or clinic

Layer 4: Family and Enduring Guardian

Your Enduring Guardian must have a copy. Under the September 2024 amendments, the guardian is required to have read and understood your ACD — they cannot fulfil this duty without access to the document.

Beyond the guardian, give copies to:

• Your spouse or partner
• Any adult children who might be present during a medical crisis
• A trusted friend or neighbour who could direct paramedics to the document if you are found unconscious at home

Some families keep a copy in a clearly labelled envelope near the front door or on the refrigerator (a convention ambulance crews are trained to check in some jurisdictions, though it is not formally standardised in Tasmania).

What Not to Do

Do not store only in a bank safe deposit box. This is inaccessible outside business hours — exactly when most emergencies happen. A safe deposit box is fine for your original will, but your ACD needs to be findable at 2am on a Sunday.

Do not store only on your phone. Phone batteries die, screens lock, and paramedics are not going to scroll through your files looking for a PDF. A phone copy is useful as a supplement, but it is not a primary storage method.

Do not assume one copy is enough. A single copy with your GP does nothing if you are admitted to a hospital 200 kilometres away. Redundancy is the entire point.

Keeping Storage Current After Changes

If you revoke and replace your ACD, every stored copy of the old version must be retrieved, destroyed, or formally superseded. This includes:

• Notifying TASCAT to update the register
• Removing the old document from My Health Record and uploading the new one
• Collecting physical copies from your GP, specialist, aged care facility, Enduring Guardian, and family members
• Distributing the new ACD to all the same people

An outdated ACD in circulation is not just useless — it is actively dangerous. A clinician who finds your old directive first will follow instructions that no longer reflect your wishes.

A System That Covers All the Gaps

The Tasmania Advance Directive & Living Will Kit includes a document storage and sharing worksheet — a structured log of exactly where each copy is held, who received it, and when it was last updated. The kit also covers the TASCAT registration process, My Health Record upload steps, and the full distribution protocol so your directive is findable in every scenario that matters.

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