What is informed consent in healthcare?

Quite simply, informed consent is your understanding and agreement of the procedure or treatment you will be undergoing. Your healthcare provider is responsible for effectively communicating with you about your condition and your surgical and treatment options. They must – legally and ethically – obtain your informed consent before proceeding with any option.

How does VPS obtain your valid informed consent?

Holistic Informed consent is achieved through a process of communication, discussion, and shared decision making. It involves understanding:

•  your goals and concerns
•  discussing the options for treatment,
• the potential outcomes (positive, negative and neutral), 
• risks and benefits and what this might mean for you. 

You will make an informed decision based on this information.

Surgery is a significant undertaking and as such, Valley Plastic Surgery requires your informed consent to be documented in writing by way of a signed consent form(s).

What documents will you need to sign to provide informed consent?

Depending on whether your procedure is undertaken in rooms at Valley Plastic Surgery or at the hospital, we will require you understand, sign and return different consent forms prior to your procedure. 

These may include:

• The Procedure: The surgeon performing the surgery must provide you with enough information to make an informed decision about whether or not to have the surgery. In addition to information about their qualifications, you should also be given information about what the surgery involves, the risks and possible complications.

• Hospital Consent: This form will allow you to provide your consent or directives for situations that may arise during the surgical procedure itself, such as blood transfusions (if required) or any procedure changes that become necessary during the surgery as a result of complications.
•  Informed Financial Consent: Knowing how much your treatment will cost is called Informed Financial Consent and a breakdown of the expected costs associated with your procedure will be provided and acknowledged in writing prior to your procedure or treatment so you are aware of what the likely out-of-pocket expenses may be. By signing the Informed Financial Consent, you are agreeing to the payment of all those costs as outlined.  

Signing and returning the documents:

It is vital that you read the ENTIRE document carefully, and sign, tick or notate where indicated and return ALL pages of the consent forms. 

If you do not have a printer or scanner to copy and email the documents, you may ask the team at VPS to help you, or we can recommend using a program such as Apple Notes to scan and create a PDF document that you can send to us. The guide for this can be found HERE or by watching the video below.