This blog post aims to educate you on your responsibilities as a practitioner, the rights of your patients, and how you can practice ‘good’ consent.
Jacqueline Roy, Ferguson Street Osteopathy·
As an allied health practitioner, it’s important for you to understand consent thoroughly, and practice it with the patients you interact with at all times.
When thinking about consent, an important question should be asked: who has the power? Practitioners hold inherent power over patients—practitioners are asked for help, they make decisions about patients' bodies and minds, and they give advice and therapeutic recommendations. Because of the imbalance in power within the practitioner-patient relationship, it is even more important for patients to have the opportunity to say no or ask questions during consultations.
As a practitioner, you must ask your patient to give consent for most activities. Consent to healthcare treatment means a person must give you their permission before they receive any treatment.
We all practice asking for and giving consent every day. “Do you want sugar in your tea?” “Can I come over a bit later?” “Please take your shoes off at the door.” These are all basic examples of consent in daily life.
In consent, we:
Generally, consent should progress as a conversation.
Implied consent is not enough to fully consent to something. It is integral for health professionals to explain to their patients what is going to occur within any given procedure, such as undressing, areas of a patient’s body that will be touched and examined, and what the treatment involves.
Giving this information to your patient alongside their agreement to rational treatment is known as informed consent. This consent can be verbal or written. I recommend that this is best to be written, so that you have a record of it.
Informed consent should include:
Being aware of associated risks, and having time to ask questions, is vital to a patient fully consenting to treatment.
When obtaining written consent, aspects of care should be discussed with the patient before they sign the form, otherwise they can’t know what they have consented to. Take the form into the room with you and have a conversation before they sign.
Part of informed consent is the knowledge that consent is an ongoing and continual agreement to the process taking place. Even if you have asked your patient to sign a consent form, or they have previously said yes to proceeding with treatment, they have the right to change their mind and halt the process at any time.
An example of a Cliniko consent form.
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