Maybe from your perspective as somebody who's assisted anesthetists and doctors in court, what is your sort of overview of the consent process and the legalities?

So I'll be talking today about the law in practice, and what I thought would be helpful before we go into real discussion is, what is the core legal framework? So there's two tests.

There's a professional practice test, and then there's the advisory test, and there's a distinction that needs to be made.

So what is a doctor's role when considering possible investigatory or treatment options and the knowledge and identification of risks, and what law applies to that? So that is the professional practice test, and that is what we call Bolam and Bolitho.

So in order to identify what investigations or treatments or the identification of risks, the test is what would a responsible body of anesthetists identify in that position? And also Bolitho, any identification of treatment options or risks must be defensible and logical.

So there's the case of McCulloch, which I'm sure your professor touched upon, in 2023, which involved a gentleman suffering a cardiac arrest, and he passed away, and one of the central issues was the claimant's family argued that he should have been given beta blockers.

The doctor presented other options, and the court had to decide, well, whose judgment is it? Is it the doctor's judgment as to what are the reasonable treatment options, or does it fall to the patient? Do you have to present the patient with every possible treatment and let them decide? The court ultimately held that the identification of risk and possible treatment alternatives is a matter of professional skill and judgment, so it's what a body of responsible anesthetists or doctors in that profession would have identified.

... where does that fall within the consent process? Is it an informing someone again? Is it very specifically telling them about the level of the trainee or how many times they've done this technique before?