By John Tingle
In the patient care equation doctors and nurses will always be in a more dominant and powerful position. They have the professional knowledge the patient needs, they are in their usual environment. The patient is ill, not in their usual environment and is often thinking the worst about their condition. The law recognises the need to correct this power imbalance and cases have gone to court over matters such as patient informed consent to treatment. Modern cases emphasise the importance of patient autonomy against that of medical paternalism. In the House of Lords case of Chester v Afshar [2004] UKHL 41 involving consent to treatment failures, Lord Steyn stated:
“In modern law medical paternalism no longer rules and a patient has a prima facie right to be informed by a surgeon of a small, but well established, risk of serious injury as a result of surgery.” (Para 16).
The focus of the modern day law and that of many professional health organisations policy development is on patient rights, trying to balance the unequal care equation. Read More