Annex A > Chapter 17 - Communication Between Healthcare Professionals and Patients > Parents' evidence on communication with clinicians and the process of obtaining their consent to surgery
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Parents' evidence on communication with clinicians and the process of obtaining their consent to surgery
The Inquiry's Experts
136 Dr Houston told the Inquiry about the difficulty that parents under stress have in remembering information and the fact that any information given to them could be perceived differently from what was meant:
`... there are two people in any communication situation, there is not just the doctor, there is also the parent and usually we are talking to them when they are very emotionally upset. Sometimes when you speak to them subsequently their perception of what was said is not what was said, and I think there is no doubt about that.
`I can certainly recollect a parent coming back and asking her "What were you told about this?", and I said, "Who on earth told you that?", looked up the notes and it was myself and I have a pretty standard way of putting things, so people do perceive things differently. I was very interested in this ... people come back and say "Yes, I was told that this would be done when the child was 7, 6, 8" and I do not believe anyone actually said that. Sometimes they may say "When would it be?" and we might say, "We have to wait and see", and whether they might have said at that time "About 8?", and someone might have said "It might be the case I am not even sure of that", but people do come with this idea of set times when things would be done ...
`They have this perception, and again how things are put by different people are taken up differently.
`I am sure we all offer to see them again and go over it again if they want, but patients do not very often come back and ask, I think they do not like perhaps to ask us and it is only when we say "Do you want me to go over it again?" some will say, "No it is all right"and some will say "Yes, could you".' [160]
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