General Osteopathic Council

Osteopathic
Practice
Standards

Osteopathic Practice Standards > A. Communication and patient partnership > A4. You must receive valid consent for all aspects of examination and treatment and record this as appropriate.

A4. You must receive valid consent for all aspects of examination and treatment and record this as appropriate.

  1. Gaining consent is a fundamental part of your practice and is both an ethical and a legal requirement. If you examine or treat a patient without consent, you may face criminal, civil or GOsC proceedings.
  2. Gaining consent is an ongoing process. You must ensure that patients are able to make decisions at all stages of their treatment and care and continue to give consent.
  3. For consent to be valid, it must be given:
    1. voluntarily
    2. by an appropriately informed person
    3. with the capacity to consent to the intervention in question.

    4. Voluntarily

  4. For consent to be voluntary, the patient must not be under any form of pressure or undue influence to consent to osteopathic care. You must ensure that patients are given the information they need to reach their own decision and give consent.
  5. Situations where you might question whether consent is voluntary might include patients being put under pressure by employers or relatives to accept osteopathic care, or where a patient might otherwise be vulnerable.

    6. By an appropriately informed person

  6. The patient needs to understand the nature, purpose, benefits and material or significant risks to them of the examination or treatment proposed. The patient must then be free to either accept or refuse the proposed examination or treatment. Some patients may need time to reflect on what you have proposed before they give their consent to it.
  7. Where your diagnostic examination and treatment are carried out simultaneously, consent could be obtained by explaining your approach, describing the types of treatment methods you might like to use, setting the parameters within which you will work, and explaining how the patient may indicate that they wish the treatment to stop. If the patient consents to you proceeding on this basis, you may do so. If the patient expresses concern that you are going outside the agreed treatment plan, you must stop the treatment.
  8. Before deciding that consent has been given, you should consider whether patients have been given the information they want or need, and how well they understand the details and implications of what is proposed.
  9. It is particularly important to ensure that your patient understands and consents to the proposed examination or treatment of any intimate area before it is administered. Intimate areas include the groin, pubis, perineum, breast and anus, but this list is not exhaustive, and patients may regard other areas of their body as ‘intimate’. Some patients may not have come prepared for such a procedure and you should offer to conduct this at a subsequent appointment, and offer a chaperone.

    10. Capacity

  10. Capacity, in this context, relates to the ability of an individual to understand, retain and evaluate information and to make and communicate a decision regarding their health needs and treatment options.
  11. You must not assume that a patient lacks capacity solely because of their age, disability, appearance, behaviour, medical condition, beliefs, or because they make a decision with which you disagree. The starting point should always be a presumption of capacity.
  12. The law recognises that some patients – because of illness, mental capacity or age – are not competent to give consent for a particular examination or treatment. This is because they may not be able to absorb or weigh up the information and make an informed decision.
  13. When an adult lacks mental capacity, decisions about their treatment must be taken in their best interests and in accordance with relevant legislation. Further details on the relevant legislation in England and Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland are provided in the GOsC guidance documents for each jurisdiction entitled Obtaining Consent.

    14. Treatment of children and young people

    Note that in the summary below a ‘child’ is a person under the age of 16 years and a ‘young person’ is a person aged 16 or 17 years.

  14. Obtaining consent for treatment to be given to a child or young person is a complex issue. If you treat children, you must be aware of the law in this respect, which may vary depending on where you practise in the UK. Further details are provided in the GOsC guidance document Obtaining Consent.
  15. A child may have the capacity to consent. You will need to apply the law, and use your professional judgement in assessing the capacity of each patient under 16 years of age, which will depend on their maturity and ability to understand what is involved. You are strongly advised to involve a person with parental responsibility for the child when seeking consent.
  16. You should involve children and young people as much as possible in discussions about their care, even if they are not able to make decisions on their own.
  17. A young person can be treated as an adult and can be presumed to have the ability to make decisions about their own care. Nevertheless, you will need to use your professional judgement to assess whether the young person in fact has the maturity and ability to understand what is involved in the treatment you are proposing for them because, as with adults, consent must be valid.

    18. Records of consent

  18. You must record key elements of your discussion with the patient. This should include information discussed, any particular concerns, expectations or requests for information raised by the patient, how you addressed these, and any decisions made. It is important that such issues are evidenced in the patient records.
  19. The validity of consent does not depend on the form in which it is given. Written consent may serve as evidence of consent, but if the elements of voluntariness, appropriate information and capacity have not been satisfied, a signature on a form will not by itself make the consent valid.
  20. Valid consent does not always have to be given in writing by the patient. However, if you are proposing a vaginal or rectal examination or technique, written consent must be obtained and kept with the patient records. You may also consider gaining written consent for other procedures, particularly those relating to areas which the patient considers intimate.

    21. Sharing of information

  21. You must obtain specific consent from patients regarding the sharing of any information about them with others.