Australia National Pathology Standards (First Edition 2027) 6.02: Informed consent: ensure consent processes comply with legislation, enable patients to consent to specimen collection and, where required, to testing, give transparent financial information including out-of-pocket costs before collection where known, and undertake privacy assessments on the collection, storage and distribution of identifiable and de-identified data and results

What does 6.02 require?

Consent is handled lawfully: patients agree to having a specimen taken and, where the law or the test requires it, to the testing itself; where costs are known, the patient hears about them, including any out-of-pocket amount, before the specimen is collected; and the practice runs privacy assessments on how it gathers, stores and passes on identifiable and de-identified data and results.