Other medical problems

Lack of consent

The law recognises that patients have a right to information to enable them to make an informed decision about any treatment (whether surgical or otherwise) that is recommended to them.

Doctors have a corresponding duty to discuss the following matters with their patients:

treatment options and the comparative risks of different treatment options
risk of the proposed procedure
prospects of success.

The law does not oblige doctors to disclose every risk reported in the medical literature and the duty is largely determined both by the magnitude of the risk (in percentage terms) of an adverse outcome and the severity of any injury that would result if the risk materialised.

Even if a court was persuaded that a patient would have refused treatment had they been given better advice, when assessing damages it would take into account what the patient's condition would have been had the treatment not gone ahead.

For example, in a spinal injury case, a court would take account of the fact that the patient may have had to continue to live in pain with further deterioration later in life.

Consent cases are therefore far from straightforward. At Thomson Snell & Passmore we can advise both in relation to the prospects of success and the likely approach of the courts to the issues set out above.

For further information please contact one of the team.

Other medical problems

Our team also has many years of experience and specialist knowledge in pursuing claims for: