Responding to the government's ideas about 'Duty of Candour'
12 December 2011
The Government wants to make it the duty of providers of National Health Service care to be open and honest with patients, their families and carers, this is called a ‘duty of candour’.
By being open they mean:
• acknowledging, apologising and explaining when things go wrong
• conducting a thorough investigation and reassuring patients, their families and carers that lessons learned will help prevent the incident happening again
• providing support for those involved to cope with what happened
At the moment there are various rules which say that NHS staff, organisations and providers of care should be open. Now the Government wants to write this requirement into contracts to provide NHS care, including contracts with private companies, social enterprises and charities.
We are responding to the government's consultation and would like to know your opinions on their proposals. To complete our short survey please follow this link: Duty of Candour survey
If you would like to look at the government's proposal in more detail follow this link to the Department of Health document (in pdf):Department of health Duty of Candour publication (pdf)
Source: POhWER
