Informed Patient Consent

Identifying information should not be published in written descriptions, photographs and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) has given written informed consent for publication. Informed consent for this purpose requires the patient be shown the manuscript to be published.

Identifying details should be omitted if they are not essential, but patient data should never be altered or falsified to attain anonymity. We understand that complete anonymity is difficult to achieve. For example, masking the eye region in photographs of patients is inadequate protection of anonymity.

Patient Consent Form

The consent form should be made available to the journal Editor if specifically requested.

Use of the Salford City Publishers Patient Consent Form is recommended where a consent form is required for submission of a manuscript to the Salford City Publishers. If another consent form is to be used, for example the standard consent form used by your institution, a blank copy of this form should be submitted to the journal so that the journal can verify that it meets best practice recommendations.

If the patient or relatives of a deceased patient cannot be traced and consent cannot be obtained, the case report can only be considered for publication if it is sufficiently anonymised. The Editorial Board reserves the right to reject papers for which the ethical aspects are, in the Board’s opinion, open to doubt.