Responsibility Health Dictionary

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Responsibility: From 1 Different Sources

n. the state or position of being accountable for one’s actions and decisions. In health care, responsibility for some matters may be delegated to a less experienced clinician but overall responsibility remains with the senior. At the same time, responsibility for personal health is with the individual, an approach underlined by *dependence agencies (such as Alcoholics Anonymous). Best health care in practice acknowledges this mutuality or partnership: the physician is an expert in medicine, the patient in him- or herself. See also professionalism.
Health Source: Oxford | Concise Colour Medical Dictionary
Author: Jonathan Law, Elizabeth Martin

Parental Responsibility

the legal status that requires adults to act in the interests of a child’s welfare. A birth mother always has parental responsibility unless it is removed by an adoption order, as has the father if married to the birth mother or named on the birth certificate. Same-sex parents, if civil partners, both have parental responsibility. In medical ethics, a person with parental responsibility can consent to, or refuse, treatment on behalf of a child who is too young to have capacity to make his or her own decisions about health care. However, the entitlement to act on behalf of a child is limited to the extent to which a person with parental responsibility is acting in the child’s best interests. See also Gillick competence.

UK government guidance on parental responsibility... parental responsibility


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