"Informed consent" and disclosure of risks in medical treatment: some recent developments

This paper discusses the implications for the doctor/patient relationship of the House of Lords' decision in Sidaway v Royal Bethlem Hospital (1985). In this decision the House of Lords rejected the "informed consent" doctrine developed in the United States in relation to the doctor's duty to disclose risks involved in medical procedures, favouring an approach in which the matter of disclosure is treated as an aspect of the doctor's duty of care towards the patient. The paper seeks to criticize this approach on the basis that it does not give sufficient protection to the patient's right to decide whether to consent to medical procedures.