Law of Consent

The attainment of consent is essential for any medical treatment and consent can be given verbally or written. The supreme court made it clear that

“If medical treatment is given without consent it may trespass against the civil law, a battery in criminal law and a breach of individual constitution rights”

Patient consent is required on every occasion the doctor wishes to initiate an examination or treatment, Exceptions to the rule are emergencies or where the law prescribes otherwise. In this instance The SHO who recommended the patient intervention should have the responsibility of providing an explanation to the patient and parent. (For minor children parents are the main consent provider).obtain a valid written or verbal consent.

Assuming the SHO was acting under the emergencies rule, he should keep good clinical records, bearing this in mind a hospital that leaves total authority to its junior Doctor to make diagnosis and treatment of patients with no guidance, policy and procedure in place is liable for the consequence of its employee’s action. (case of Collins v Mid western (1996)) .In hospital setting consent and initiation of treatment of this type is normally by senior clinician exceptional cases involves a suitable qualified trained doctor and posses the appropriate communication skills. There is no legal requirement to obtain written consent but in this particular case it would have been helpful. Would another SHO acted in similar ways?

Consent form simply documents that some discussion about the procedure has taken place; aim of an intervention together with the anticipated outcome must be explained in plain language no medical record showed that all this transpired if on the SHO had taken time to perform this singular procedure... Material risk needs to be delivered by the Doctor to the patient, the judgement in Goeghegan v Harris delivered in June and Sept 2000 says material risk includes consideration of both the consequences and the...