The advantages of nurse-led consent for dialysis in improving shared decision-making and obtaining legal consent

The advantages of nurse-led consent for dialysis in improving shared decision-making and obtaining legal consent
Jo-Anne Moodie, Elaine Sanders, Brett Sobey, Jade Ryan, Jayne Amy, Jenny Beavis, Adele Montgomery, Stephen G Holt
Renal Society of Australasia Journal, March 2021; 17(1) pp 4-9
Abstract
The treatment/medical consent procedure has generally been performed by doctors. Despite the recognised importance of the consent process, formal initial consent for maintenance dialysis was poorly performed at in our service and rarely performed thereafter. As a large renal unit with a commitment to excellence in patient care, we felt this was out of keeping with our remit and sought to change the process to ensure we delivered useful information to allow our patients to have a meaningful discussion around consent issues. We trained senior nurses to perform the reconsent process, and took the opportunity to reassess patients’ decision-making competence, discuss advance care planning, blood consent and personal data privacy issues. We demonstrated a large improvement in the number of patients having a valid dialysis consent form, and realised the potential of this procedure to improve the care we give to our patient group. We recommend the benefits of nurse-led consent for dialysis to other services.