Service Notice: 4–6 July From 2pm 4 July to 6 July, some online services will be unavailable. Membership services phone lines will close at 4pm on 4 July. Medicolegal support and advice remain unaffected. We apologise for any inconvenience.
Consent is a fundamental principle of medical law. The basic rule is simple: no-one has the right to touch anyone else without lawful excuse and if doctors do so it may well undermine patients’ trust.
Such behaviour may lead to a clinical negligence claim, a complaint to the GMC or even civil or criminal proceedings for assault. There are three components to valid consent:
Capacity
Information
Voluntariness
"No-one has the right to touch anyone else without lawful excuse and if doctors do so it may well undermine patients’ trust"
You'll notice a few things have changed on our website. After asking our members what they want in an online platform, we've made it easier to access our membership benefits and created a more personalised user experience.
Why not take our quick 60-second tour? We'll show you how it all works and it should only take a minute.