Diritto a informare e a essere informati: il consenso informato per l’appropriatezza delle cure

This essay is aimed at framing informed consent not only within the sphere relating to the appropriateness of care but also as a crossroads between the obligation to inform and the right to information in the context of a National Health Service that moves in the wake of the rules of administrative law and therefore of the protection of the patient as a user. The reflections will start from the characteristics of informed consent and its role in making treatment more appropriate, and then move on to underlining how the doctor-patient communicative relationship is linked to the quality of information and communication provided by the actors who make up the therapeutic alliance. Informed consent represents the result of obligations and rights of different nature and among these a considerable weight is constituted by that right to inform and to be informed which can integrate further protections for the patient-user.