With zero no votes, the bill<\/a> from Sen. Catherine Blakespear, D-Encinitas, is meant to provide clarity and consistency with advanced care directives and other documents that deal with the type of medical care people receive at the end of their life or if they become seriously ill or injured.<\/p>\n The bill specifies that nurse practitioners and physician assistants can sign off on do-not-resuscitate and POLST forms, as well as doctors.<\/p>\n Completely voluntary, POLST<\/a> \u2014 an acronym for Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment\u00a0 \u2014 lets a seriously ill patient specify the type of medical treatment they wish to receive at the end of life. This can include CPR, intubation and tube feeding, among other interventions. Meanwhile, a DNR form lets emergency medical personnel know not to perform CPR in the event a person stops breathing or their heart stops, but it does not address other medical treatments, according to California\u2019s Emergency Medical Services Authority<\/a>.<\/p>\n Blakespear\u2019s bill also ensures POLST and DNR forms executed out of state would still be applicable in California and would allow POLST forms to be signed electronically.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople should get the end-of-life care they want, even if they are incapacitated or can no longer express their wishes,\u201d said Blakespear, who represents communities in southern Orange County. \u201cThis bill puts patients first by strengthening continuity on advance care planning forms, so their medical wishes are honored when they matter most.\u201d<\/p>\n Blakespear, an attorney who has worked with estate planning, predicted Senate Bill 1088 will not be quite as controversial as it works its way through the legislative process as her previous effort to expand California\u2019s medical aid in dying law<\/a> to include more people, such as those who have been diagnosed with Alzheimer\u2019s disease or other forms of dementia.<\/p>\n California is one of only a handful of states that allow people diagnosed with a terminal illness and who meet a tight set of criteria to end their lives with doctor-prescribed drugs. Blakespear\u2019s bill to expand who qualifies did not even receive a committee hearing in 2024.<\/p>\n This recent effort is really \u201cjust a modernization of forms,\u201d Blakespear said in an interview. But it\u2019s still an important tool for people, whether they are healthy or are dealing with a terminal illness, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m interested in helping people at the end of their life transition with as much power as they want,\u201d said Blakespear, who noted she has thought through and discussed end-of-life care not only for her parents but for herself as well. \u201cInevitably, everyone will die.\u201d<\/p>\n The bill is sponsored by the Coalition for Compassionate Care, an organization that works with healthcare providers, lawmakers and other advocacy organizations to promote high-quality care for those who are seriously ill or nearing the end of their lives. It has support from Alzheimer\u2019s Orange County, the California Academy of Family Physicians and the California Catholic Conference, among others.<\/p>\n It is opposed by the California Clinical Nurse Specialist Association, which said it wanted the bill updated to authorize clinical nurse specialists to sign POLST forms.<\/p>\n The bill heads next to the Assembly.<\/p>\n In other news:<\/p>\n \u2022 The California Senate also passed a bill<\/a> from Sen. Steven Choi, R-Irvine, that provides a process for people who were adopted as children<\/a> from a foreign country to petition, as adults, for their readoption, the legal process of finalizing an adoption back in California.<\/p>\n \u201cSB 927 restores dignity and legal certainty to individuals who have spent their lives as part of Californian families, yet were left without the documentation needed to prove their status, through no fault of their own,\u201d Choi said. \u201cThis bill provides a compassionate and practical solution for adoptees who fell through the cracks of the system decades ago.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Though the changes are largely technical, the California Senate overwhelmingly passed a bill recently its author says will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,1843,8,400,1280,100,611,13,41780,136],"class_list":["post-341515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-legislature","tag-california-news","tag-california-politics","tag-health-care","tag-news","tag-orange-county","tag-politics","tag-sacramento-snapshot","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Sen.](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/OCR-L-EOLBILL-1221.jpg\")
Sen. Catherine Blakespear represents communities in Southern Orange County. (Photo by Jeff Antenore, Contributing Photographer)<\/p>\n