Consent

Question 1

3 basic phases of decision-making

Answer 1

• Gathering information
• Recalling and pooling that information
• Weighing things up

Question 2

What is the doctor’s role in the decision-making partnership?

Answer 2

Facilitate the best possible decision for the patient

Question 3

What is autonomy?

Answer 3

The ability to define oneself through one’s choices and to live according to one’s values and beliefs

Question 4

GMC 7 key principles of consent

Answer 4

• All patients have the right to be involved in decisions about their treatment and care and be supported to make informed decisions if they are able.
• Decision making is an ongoing process focused on meaningful dialogue: the exchange of relevant information specific to the individual patient.
• All patients have the right to be listened to, and to be given the information they need to make a decision and the time and support they need to understand it.
• Doctors must try to find out what matters to patients so they can share relevant information about the benefits and harms of proposed options and reasonable alternatives, including the option to take no action
• Doctors must start from the presumption that all adult patients have capacity to make decisions about their treatment and care.
• The choice of treatment or care for patients who lack capacity must be of overall benefit to them
• Patients whose right to consent is affected by law should be supported to be involved in the decision-making process

Question 5

What is a material risk

Answer 5

Either:
- A reasonable person in the patient’s position would attach significance to the risk
- If the doctor knows this particular patient would attach significance to the risk

Question 6

What should you do in a situation where consent cannot be obtained and it is not possible to postpone until it can be?

Answer 6

• Act in the patient’s best interest
• Act on information of what they would want (eg. advance statement)

Question 7

What must consent be to be valid?

Answer 7

• Voluntary (not coerced)
• Informed
• From a competent patient

Question 8

What is coercion?

Answer 8

When a person uses a credible and severe threat of harm or force to control another

Question 9

Who has the ability to consent on behalf of a child?

Answer 9

• Birth mother
• Father if named on birth certificate or married to birth mother

Question 10

How else can a father gain ability to consent for their child?

Answer 10

Apply through the courts

Question 11

How many parents need to give consent for a child’s treatment?

Answer 11

1

Question 12

What can a doctor do if both parents refuse treatment, but they believe it to be in the child’s best interests?

Answer 12

Apply to the courts for the consent to be given by them