Where to Store an Advance Care Directive in South Australia
South Australia Has No Central ACD Registry
Unlike some states that maintain a centralised register of advance care planning documents, South Australia has no government registry where you can lodge your Advance Care Directive. The responsibility for ensuring your ACD is accessible to the right people at the right time falls entirely on you.
This is the gap that catches families. Someone spends hours thoughtfully drafting their ACD, goes through the strict signing and witnessing process, stores the original in a drawer — and when the ambulance arrives two years later, nobody at the hospital knows the document exists.
An ACD that can't be found in an emergency is functionally the same as not having one.
The Storage and Distribution Checklist
Effective ACD storage isn't about finding one safe place. It's about strategic redundancy — putting copies in every location where a healthcare decision might be made about you.
1. Keep the Original at Home
The signed, witnessed original should be in a secure but accessible location at home. A fireproof home safe is ideal. Make sure at least one other person — your first preferred SDM, a trusted family member — knows exactly where it is.
Do not store the original in a bank safe deposit box. Bank vaults are inaccessible outside business hours, may require the account holder (you) to access them, and can be frozen if you die. An ACD locked in a bank vault at 2am on a Saturday night when you're in the emergency department is useless.
Don't store it with your will at a solicitor's office either. Your solicitor's filing system is designed for post-death access, not for emergency medical situations.
2. Upload to My Health Record
This is the single most important distribution step. My Health Record is the federal digital health platform that allows authorised healthcare providers across Australia to access your medical information — including advance care planning documents.
To upload:
- Log in to My Health Record via your myGov account
- Navigate to the "Advance Care Planning" section
- Upload a high-quality PDF scan or digital photograph of your signed ACD
Alternatively, ask your GP to upload it during your next appointment. Many GP practices will scan and upload the document as part of their clinical record-keeping.
The 2024 amendments to the Advance Care Directives Act 2013 explicitly confirmed that clinicians can rely on digital copies accessed through My Health Record with the same legal confidence as the physical original. This resolved previous uncertainty about whether electronic copies carried the same weight.
3. Give a Certified Copy to Your GP
Deliver a certified copy to your regular GP practice and ask them to:
- Scan it into your electronic patient file
- Flag it prominently so that any covering doctor or after-hours service can find it
- Note in your file that you have an ACD, who your SDMs are, and where the original is stored
If you change GP practices, make sure the new practice gets a copy and that your record is transferred with the ACD attached.
4. Give Copies to Your SDMs
Every appointed Substitute Decision-Maker should have their own certified copy. They need to be able to present the document to a hospital or clinical team if your My Health Record upload can't be located or if they need to discuss your specific instructions with treating staff.
Have the copies certified by a JP — a standard photocopy without certification may face pushback from cautious hospital administrators.
5. Lodge with Your Local Hospital
If you have a regular hospital — whether because of an ongoing condition, your geographic location, or your local health network — present a certified copy to the admissions office or medical records department. Ask them to scan it into their electronic medical records system.
This is especially important for planned admissions (surgery, chemotherapy, dialysis) where the clinical team should review your ACD before treatment begins.
6. Lodge with Your Aged Care Facility
If you live in residential aged care, provide a certified copy to the Director of Care or clinical nurse manager. The document should be:
- Scanned into the facility's resident records
- Flagged for all care staff
- Included in your transfer documentation if you're moved to hospital
7. Carry a Wallet Card
A wallet card is a small, laminated card that fits in your wallet or purse and states:
- That you have an Advance Care Directive
- The date it was executed
- Your first preferred SDM's name and phone number
- Where the original document is stored
- That a digital copy is on My Health Record
A wallet card won't contain your full ACD, but it can alert the clinical team that one exists and tell them where to find it.
What About Digital-Only Storage?
Since the 2024 amendments confirmed the legal status of digital copies, some people wonder whether they need physical copies at all. In theory, a My Health Record upload should be accessible anywhere in the Australian healthcare system.
In practice, redundancy matters. My Health Record is not universally accessed by all healthcare providers — particularly in smaller regional clinics, private specialist rooms, and aged care facilities that haven't fully integrated their IT systems. Internet outages happen. System access can be slow during emergencies.
Physical copies at the GP, hospital, and aged care facility ensure that even if digital access fails, someone in your care chain has the document.
Free Download
Get the South Australia — Advance Directive Quick-Start
Everything in this article as a printable checklist — plus action plans and reference guides you can start using today.
When You Update Your ACD
If you execute a new ACD (which automatically revokes the old one), you must update all storage locations:
- Upload the new version to My Health Record and remove the old one
- Deliver new certified copies to your GP, hospital, SDMs, and aged care facility
- Retrieve and destroy all certified copies of the old ACD
- Update your wallet card with the new execution date
Leaving old copies in circulation creates a serious risk: a clinical team finds the outdated version and follows instructions you've since changed.
Our South Australia Advance Directive & Living Will Kit includes a document distribution log, a printable wallet card template, and a step-by-step My Health Record upload guide — so every copy of your ACD is tracked and every healthcare touchpoint has your current directive.
Get Your Free South Australia — Advance Directive Quick-Start
Download the South Australia — Advance Directive Quick-Start — a printable guide with checklists, scripts, and action plans you can start using today.