The Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) has updated its “Use an LPA” and “View an LPA” service so that users can now view the details of instructions and preferences in a lasting power of attorney (LPA).
The Use an LPA service – which was introduced in 2020 – lets donors and attorneys give organisations access to view an online summary of an LPA, through “View an LPA”. This means the organisation can check the LPA is valid and download a version of the summary for their records.
The OPG says over 908,000 LPAs have been accessed through the “Use an LPA” service. However, they said one of the features they “consistently receive feedback about” is viewing instructions and preferences within the system.
Previously, users couldn’t see the detail of any instructions and preferences, so if an LPA had them attorneys would often have to supply the original LPA if details needed to be verified. The OPG say this was “time-consuming and often hard to manage”, so hopes its changes make sharing details of an LPA easier for donors, attorneys and organisations.
What does it look like?
Donors and attorneys will see a scanned image of instructions and preferences. They can check the detail before giving a secure access code to an organisation, for example a bank or energy provider. Organisations viewing the LPA with an access code will see the same scanned image of instructions and preferences as written in the LPA, including any continuation sheets with extra information.
No change to the View an LPA or Use an LPA service
There is no change to how the View an LPA or Use an LPA service is accessed. When an LPA is registered, attorneys and donors are sent an activation key.
After creating a Use an LPA account, they can then use this activation key to add the LPA to their account along with any other LPAs they have.
The donor or attorneys can then use the service to make an access code which they can give to organisations to view an online summary of an LPA.
