0–18 years

This guidance covers children and young people from birth to their 18th birthday. It sets out how to assess children and young people’s capacity to consent and how to involve their family and others close to them in sensitive and complex decisions. It  sets the principles for  communicating effectively across the team, with the child and their family or carers, to make sure you gather relevant information.

This guidance will help you decide what to do if parents want to access their child’s medical records or where there’s a disagreement about treatment options.  It gives details of when you can provide contraceptive, abortion and STI advice and treatment, without parental knowledge or consent, to young people under 16.

The professional standards describe good practice, and not every departure from them will be considered serious. You must use your professional judgement to apply the standards to your day-to-day practice. If you do this, act in good faith and in the interests of patients, you will be able to explain and justify your decisions and actions. We say more about professional judgement, and how the professional standards relate to our fitness to practise processes, appraisal and revalidation, at the beginning of Good medical practice. 

In  this guidance the terms ‘you must’ and ‘you should’ are used in the following ways:

• ‘You must’ is used for a legal or ethical duty you’re expected to meet (or be able to justify why you didn’t). 
• 'You should’ is used for duties or principles that either:
• may not apply to you or to the situation you’re currently in, or
• you may not be able to comply with because of factors outside your control

This guidance was updated on 25 May 2018 to reflect the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation and Data Protection Act 2018.

The guidance was updated on 13 December 2024 when regulation of physician associates and anaesthesia associates by the GMC came into effect.