Withholding policies from patients restricts their autonomy

摘要

Patient autonomy is regarded as a basic value for modern health care in Western countries. The UK regulatory body, the General Medical Council, states that patients must be given enough information to enable them to give informed consent to treatment. It does not, however, state whether patients must be told about all the procedures or treatments that might help them or only those provided locally. Yet policies about what information to offer or to withhold are crucial to patients' autonomy. In this article I show the harm that can be caused by withholding information about policies from patients and discuss some of the ethical and political issues.