Consent after Montgomery: What next for healthcare professionals?

Abstract

The standard of care for consent to treatment has moved to the ‘prudent patient’ or ‘Montgomery’ standard, following the case of Montgomery v Lanarkshire (2015). The standard of care for treatment itself remains the ‘prudent practitioner’ or Bolam Standard following Bolam v Friern Hospital Management Committee (1957). What does this splitting of the legal standard of care for consent mean for the health professionals who deliver care to patients, and what does it mean for the quality of information patients now ought to expect to receive when they consent to treatment? This article considers the advent of true legal ‘informed consent’ into UK healthcare practice, and what it means for information provision to patients from an allied health professional medicolegal perspective.