Non-disclosure requests by parents: Who should decide? a legal and ethical framework

Abstract

This article contributes to existing academic commentary on who should decide if a non-Gillick competent child ought to be informed about their diagnosis, prognosis and treatment when their parents and clinicians disagree. A distinction is drawn between dilemmas involving treatment disputes and non-disclosure requests, arguing that the latter is of a different nature and thus requires a different type of expertise. This article argues that parental expertise should be respected and given greater weight than it currently is when a parent’s non-disclosure request is clearly within a child’s best interests or if the request falls into a ‘Gray Zone’, where it is unclear whether it is in a child’s best interests to be informed.