Consent as a process, not a signature
Professional guidance in the United Kingdom is consistent on this point: consent is a process of shared decision making, not the moment a form is signed. The GMC guidance on decision making and consent sets out what that entails, and guidance specific to cosmetic interventions adds requirements that reflect the elective and commercial nature of the work.
The elective character is what makes this instrument necessary. In an elective, privately funded procedure, the person taking consent frequently has a commercial interest in the answer. That is not an accusation; it is a structural fact, and it is why the guidance emphasises the separation of consent from treatment in time, the clinician's own responsibility for the discussion, and the absence of pressure.
The criteria here follow that structure. Who takes consent, when, on what information, covering what, recorded how, and with what interval afterwards. Each is scored against a descriptor rather than against an opinion, so two people scoring the same records tend to agree.
The eighth criterion, absence of time-limited inducement, is included because it is the point where marketing practice and consent practice collide most directly. An offer that expires at the end of the appointment is a commercial technique that operates on the reflection period the rest of the process exists to protect.
How to score this checklist
Take the records of the last ten treated patients. Not selected records: the last ten.
For each, establish who took consent, on what date, and on what date the procedure took place. Those three facts alone score criteria one, two and seven. Clinics are often surprised by the distribution of intervals, because the policy and the diary tell different stories.
For criteria four, five and six, read the consent records side by side. If the risk paragraph is identical across ten patients, score 0 on individualisation regardless of how comprehensive it is. Identical text is evidence of a template, not of a discussion.
For criterion three, find evidence that written information was issued before the consent appointment. An email with an attachment and a date satisfies it; a belief that information is usually sent does not.
For criterion eight, look at the clinic's current promotions rather than at the records. Any offer with an expiry that could fall within a patient's reflection period scores 0.
Score criterion ten by looking at the timestamps on the records where your system provides them.
Common scoring errors
Scoring the form rather than the process. A comprehensive form completed three minutes before treatment scores badly here, and correctly so.
Treating a video or leaflet as the information criterion. It satisfies the criterion only if issued in advance and if receipt is recorded.
Regarding a deposit as unrefundable without saying so. The withdrawal criterion asks whether the position is stated in writing. Silence scores 0 whichever way the position falls.
Excusing same-day treatment as patient preference. Patients often prefer it. The criterion asks whether the interval exists, and a clinic that offers same-day treatment routinely has made a choice about that.
Scoring individualisation from memory. Read the ten records together. Templates are invisible one at a time.
Reconciling commercial practice with the reflection period
The finding that most often follows this checklist is a conflict between marketing practice and consent practice. Time-limited offers, same-day treatment availability and deposits taken at consultation all shorten reflection, and all three are common.
Resolving that conflict is a decision for the clinic rather than for an instrument, but the decision should be made explicitly rather than by drift. Writing down the clinic's position, in one paragraph, on offers with expiry dates, on same-day treatment and on deposits, is the most useful output of this checklist. It gives reception something to say, and it stops each case being decided by whoever is standing there.
Where same-day treatment is genuinely appropriate for a low-risk procedure with a patient who consulted previously, say so and define the conditions. A blanket rule that everyone ignores is worse than a stated exception.
Pair this with the consultation process scorecard, which covers the wider consultation, and with the package and promotion integrity rubric, which assesses the offers themselves. Where deposits and payment plans are involved, the finance disclosure checklist covers what has to be explained.