Surgical consent during the COVID-19 pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic, surgical practice may deviate with operative and non-operative management considered. Appropriate discussion of options with patients is paramount to quality surgical care. Intercollegiate and EAES guidelines recommend discussing and documenting risk of COVID-19 exposure in the consent process for patients undergoing surgery.

Closed-loop audit of consent forms for patients undergoing emergency and elective surgical procedures. Interventions implemented included education of wider surgical teams. Data was collected during a one-week period for each cycle and analysed using Chi-squared test.

In cycle 1, 6/17 (35.3%) case notes documented discussion of COVID-19 risk. Following intervention, compliance improved to 23/29 (79.3%) cases in cycle 2 and 33/45 (73.3%) cases in cycle 3.

Pre-intervention, our consenting practice was non-compliant. Our interventions led to significant and sustained improvements in practice. We recommend provision of wider surgical team education to facilitate good consenting practice.