672 Emergency Laparotomy Patients: Is the Current Local Consent Process Compliant with Local and National Guidelines?

Aim Obtaining valid consent is crucial to patient care. It also minimises the chance for claims regarding legal action for battery, breach of human rights and/or successful clinical negligence claims. In this project, we assessed whether a documented discussion took place prior to signing consent forms and whether consent forms were being completed adequately. Method This was a retrospective audit based on the Royal College of Surgeons’ (Good Surgical Practice) guidelines and the local trust policy. We assessed 50 case notes of patients who had a laparotomy from January 2019 to April 2020 in a busy district general hospital in the UK. Results We noted that our practice was fully compliant with documenting patient demographics, signatures, and the name of the procedure in consent forms. On the other hand, we found that, in the majority of cases there was no documentation of detailed benefits, risks, alternatives of surgery in case notes where compliance was only 21%. In addition, poor compliance was noted in documenting some of the possible risks e.g., hernia (50% compliance), leak (46% compliance) and ileus (26% compliance). Conclusions A detailed discussion with the patient and family including benefits, risks and alternatives of surgery should take place and this should be documented clearly in the case notes prior to signing the consent form.