Consent in surgery: Is there a Montgomery effect?

In the aftermath of Montgomery, hospitals across the UK have been bombarded by offers to ‘update’ their clinicians’ understanding of the ‘new consent law’. Even surgeons have now heard the story of Mrs Montgomery’s plight, and the Supreme Court’s reaction to the events that unfolded during the birth of her son. In truth, the reasonable surgeon has seen little change to the advice that he or she is offered when considering what should be disclosed when seeking a patient’s consent to surgery. From the non-lawyer’s perspective, the Lanarkshire case makes no alterations to the advice set down within the GMC’s guidance in 2008; itself, a synthesis grounded in another obstetric case from the last century.