Increasing importance of truly informed consent: the role of written patient information

Complaints to the General Medical Council (GMC) and litigation against doctors are currently rising at an alarming rate, with an increase of 23 per cent from 7153 in 2010 to 8781 in 2011.1 This equates to a 1:64 chance of the GMC investigating any individual doctor. Of all the causes of dissatisfaction among patients, one of the most common is the feeling that they ‘were not told’ that a particular outcome might result from a given treatment. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons