Picture this. You’re crossing the road on Tuesday morning and you get hit by a van. You survive, broken pelvis, long recovery, but you won’t be seeing clients for months. Maybe ever.
Who tells your clients? Who cancels Thursday’s sessions? Who knows where your clinical notes are stored, which laptop they’re on, what the password is? Who contacts the ones mid-crisis?
If you don’t have answers to those questions written down somewhere, you’re not alone. Most therapists in private practice don’t. I’ve asked around and it’s one of those things we all know we should do, filed next to “update my website” and “sort out my pension.” Except this one actually matters on the worst possible day.
What a clinical will actually is
A clinical will isn’t a legal document. It’s not part of your regular will and your solicitor doesn’t need to see it. It’s a set of written instructions for a trusted colleague, your clinical executor, telling them exactly what to do with your practice if you suddenly can’t work.
That’s it. No mystery to it.
The name makes it sound heavier than it is. You’re basically answering: “If I disappear tomorrow, here’s who does what.”
What goes in one
You need fewer things than you’d think.
Start with a clinical executor. A colleague who’s agreed to step in. Not your partner, not your mum, but someone who understands therapeutic relationships and can handle client communication appropriately. Ask them. Get a yes. Write it down.
You’ll want one or two nominated contacts who can confirm your identity and help coordinate if something happens. Think of them as emergency contacts for your practice, not your person.
Include next of kin details so your executor can reach your family and your family can reach your executor. A verification phrase helps here. A shared word or sentence so nobody’s guessing whether they’re speaking to the right person during a crisis.
Then record disposal instructions. Where are your notes? Paper files in the filing cabinet? Encrypted on a laptop? In a cloud system? Your executor needs to know what exists, where it lives, and what to do with it. Be specific. “My notes are digital” isn’t enough.
Pre-write client notification messages for two scenarios: temporary absence (you’re coming back) and permanent cessation (you’re not). Write them now, when you’re calm and thinking clearly. Your executor won’t have that luxury.
And set a review date. Clinical wills go stale. Your executor moves away, you change your note-keeping system, you take on different kinds of clients. Review it once a year. Put it in your diary.
The professional body bit
BACP, UKCP, BPS, BABCP. They all recommend you have one. The BACP Ethical Framework talks about maintaining trust even when the therapeutic relationship ends unexpectedly. The UKCP Code of Ethics covers similar ground.
None of them require it in a “you’ll lose your accreditation” sense. But it’s an ethical obligation, and if something happened and you hadn’t made provisions, your professional body would have questions. So would you, honestly, if you could see the mess left behind.
Why you haven’t done it yet
Because it’s morbid. Sitting down and writing instructions for what happens when you die or get catastrophically ill isn’t a fun Wednesday evening. It feels abstract and unlikely and a bit dramatic.
Because it’s admin. You already do too much admin. Client notes, invoices, GDPR compliance, insurance renewals, CPD hours. Adding another thing to the pile feels impossible.
Because you don’t know where to start. You’ve maybe seen templates floating around, but they’re either too vague to be useful or so detailed they feel like a dissertation. So you bookmark it and move on.
I get all of that. But here’s the thing. It doesn’t take as long as you think. A basic clinical will takes 20 minutes if you already know who your executor is. The asking-a-colleague part is the hardest bit, and even that’s just a conversation.
What good looks like
You don’t need a 15-page document. You need something your executor can actually use on a terrible day when they’re stressed and sad and trying to help.
Good: one named executor who knows they’re your executor and has said yes. Clear instructions they can follow without needing to call you (because they can’t). Client notification messages already written, so your executor isn’t agonising over tone at 11pm. Record locations documented, not “somewhere on my computer” but “encrypted folder on MacBook, password in sealed envelope in desk drawer” or “stored in my practice management system, here’s how to access it.” A review date within the last 12 months.
Bad: a PDF you made three years ago with an executor who’s since emigrated.
The problem with PDFs in drawers
Most clinical will solutions, including the templates your professional body might point you to, produce a document. You fill it in, download it, maybe print it, and it goes in a drawer or a folder on your desktop.
That’s better than nothing. But a document doesn’t notify anyone. It doesn’t cancel sessions. It doesn’t give your executor a way to actually reach your clients or manage the handover. On the worst day, your executor is holding a piece of paper and trying to work out what to do with it.
What we built (and why it’s different)
I built hoito for therapists in private practice, and clinical will was one of the first things I worked on because I kept hearing therapists say they knew they needed one and didn’t have one.
hoito’s clinical will isn’t a document generator. It’s a live system inside your practice management. It walks you through each section with completion tracking so you can do it in chunks over a few sittings rather than forcing yourself through the whole thing in one go.
The part I’m most proud of is the executor portal. Your executor gets their own secure login. If the will ever needs to be activated, they see a dashboard with your clients, can generate per-client summary PDFs, message clients directly, and mark handovers as complete. They’re not fumbling with a printout. They have a working tool designed for exactly this situation.
The system also sends nominee notification emails, nudges you with review reminders so it doesn’t go stale, and logs every action taken for your protection and theirs. There’s verification phrase checking so your executor can confirm their identity. And yes, you can export the whole thing as a PDF if you want a hard copy, but honestly that’s the least useful thing it does.
It’s included in the standard subscription. No extra charge.
You already know you need one. Today’s as good a day as any.