Informed Consent

What is Informed Consent?

Consent is an agreement between you and your healthcare provider. Your healthcare provider will ask you to give your consent before you have any test, treatment or procedure they are recommending for you. The only exception is in an emergency or situation to save your life.

You have a right to receive clear information about your condition and the risks and benefits of treatment options available to you. You also have the option to decline or withdraw treatment. These rights are contained in the Australian Charter of Healthcare Rights (the Charter). You can find the Charter here: safetyandquality.gov.au/our-work/partnering-consumers/australian-charter-healthcare-rights.

What is ‘shared decision making’?

True informed consent is more than a signature on a form. It involves a conversation between a patient (or their person responsible), and a healthcare provider that results in a decision to have or not have, a healthcare test, treatment or procedure. This is referred to as shared decision making.

You may want to involve a support person in this decision – like a family member, carer or friend. A support person can help you to remember information and ask questions. You can use these 5 questions as a guide in your discussion with your healthcare provider.

Some people may not be confident to ask questions in a conversation about consent and some people are particularly vulnerable, like older adults, people with limited English or who are Deaf and people living with a disability. There are many factors that can make communication a challenge, but not impossible. As a patient or a family member, carer or friend supporting a patient or as a legal substitute decision-maker, you can use several strategies to make it easier to communicate with health care providers:

• As a patient, tell the health care provider if you would like your family or carer involved.
• Check back with the health care provider if there is something you didn’t understand or need repeated. Learn more about check-back here.
• Ask questions.
• Ask for an interpreter if you do not speak English well or are Deaf.
• Tell the doctor if you have an Advance Care Directive in place.
• Tell the doctor if you are the patient’s legal substitute decision-maker.

Who is a ‘person responsible’ and what is substitute decision-making?

The patient usually gives consent. When a person cannot make decisions on their own or with support and the situation is not an emergency, the health practitioner will need to talk to the patient’s ‘person responsible’. This is required by law (NSW Guardianship Act 1987).  A ‘person responsible’ may be a legal substitute decision-maker. The role of a substitute decision-maker is to make decisions on behalf of the person they represent.

As a patient, your person responsible may not be your next of kin, that is a member of your immediate or close family. The law in NSW (Guardianship Act 1987) sets out the list of people who can be the person responsible – this is called the hierarchy for healthcare and medical decision-making.

This factsheet provides more information about who is a person responsible and their role in providing consent for healthcare and medical treatment.

This website provides more information about substitute decision-making for healthcare and financial and legal decisions.

Are you someone living with an intellectual disability? Or a carer for someone? Watch this short video called Big Decisions - Who's that at the end of my bed? to learn more about who can and who can’t make a healthcare decision for you.

Read or download the ISLHD Informed Consent Fact Sheet.