Good medical records – whether electronic or handwritten – are essential for the continuity of care of your patients. They should be comprehensive enough to allow a colleague to carry on where you left off.

Patients overtly coerced into undergoing treatment they do not want can rightly claim that their “consent” was not given freely and is therefore not valid. Cases of overt coercion are rare, but there are circumstances in which patients may feel that they have been covertly pushed into accepting treatment they would prefer not to have had. For example, in some circumstances patients may find it very difficult to say “No” to the proposed treatment, or to challenge the doctor’s assumption that they would have no objections to going ahead.

Learning From Events

With more than 300 million patients consulting with primary care teams annually it’s unfortunately inevitable that a proportion will suffer some form of unintentional harm, mostly of low to moderate severity. Research has suggested that around 1-2% of consultations in primary care are associated with an adverse event. The cost of harm – to patients, to those working in healthcare, and to productivity – is significant.

Whether it’s a revised piece of GMC guidance, or a Bill going through the Scottish Parliament, we use our expertise to inform debates about changes that could affect your practice.

In this series we explore the key risk areas in general practice

Dr Michael Rayment and Dr Ann Sullivan, Department of Sexual Health and HIV Medicine, Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation Trust (on behalf of the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV, and the British HIV Association).

Try these sample AKT questions provided by Dr Mahibur Rahman from Emedica

Try these sample AKT questions provided by Dr Mahibur Rahman from Emedica

Try these sample AKT questions provided by Dr Mahibur Rahman from Emedica

MPS has seen a steady rise in the number of claims involving practice nurses, with ‘delay in diagnosis’ being the most common type of claim. Kate Taylor, Clinical Risk Manager, MPS Educational Services, reveals more

Nasogastric tubes are widely used in the world’s hospitals, yet in spite of fierce campaigning to expose the dangers, patients are still dying from the complications of wrongful insertion.

Over half of respondents to an MPS survey admitted to regret over their failure to raise concerns in the workplace. Gareth Gillespie looks at how obstacles to whistleblowing can be overcome.

When treating a patient who has reached the end of life, clear communication and collective decision-making are as important as any clinical intervention, says Sarah Whitehouse

Last year a French psychiatrist was charged with manslaughter after failing to recognise the danger posed by her patient. Sara Williams investigates how to balance the interests of risky patients and the public

Dr Peter Mackenzie, Head of Membership Governance at MPS, looks at the reasons why claims in a range of surgical specialties are settled

Unemployment reduces wellbeing. Recession raises the demands on healthcare systems and makes it harder to pay for them. Doctors worldwide are having to adapt and change to cope with these additional pressures, says Sarah Whitehouse

Complaints to the regulator against doctors have hit a record high, rising more sharply than for any other health professional. Is this down to poor practice or a changing complaints culture? Sara Williams investigates

Consent is a fundamental principle of medical law. The basic rule is simple: no-one has the right to touch anyone else without lawful excuse and if doctors do so it may well undermine patients’ trust.

I wake up bolt upright at 5.30am. I look in the mirror and realise I’ve inadvertently left my false eyelashes on from the previous day’s telly. They hang rather precariously from my upper lids – my mascara is half way down my cheeks and my hair is doing a good impersonation of Jedward. My husband rolls over and states that I look like a drag queen and promptly falls back to sleep.

All doctors know that maintaining confidentiality is an important part of building up trust with patients. Here, Dr Stephanie Bown examines the medicolegal aspects of confidentiality