Duty of Candour

All health and social care providers have a duty of candour, to be open and transparent with people who use services and other 'relevant persons' (people acting lawfully on their behalf) in relation to care and treatment.

Being open when mistakes in care have led to harm is essential to the partnership between patients/service users and those who provide their care. Openness about what happened and discussing safety incidents promptly, fully and compassionately can help people cope better with the after-effects. It can also help staff come to terms with the consequence when things go wrong.

The following definitions of openness, transparency and candour are taken and adapted from definitions used by Robert Francis in his report, Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry (2013):

In safeguarding practice, the term Duty of Candour generally applies to a range of duties that might be placed on the providers of care services (whether or not they are in the public sector) to be open and transparent about information that is relevant to safeguarding matters and concerns about their services. This use of the term is not tied to situations where litigation is in prospect; the purpose of the duty is to promote the safety of care receivers through the open identification and management of risk rather than to enable decisions to be made in litigation. An example of this is found in the regulations which set out requirements in relation to the standards of care provision by providers registered under the Regulation of Care (Jersey) Law 2014. Regulations 6 and 21 contain obligations to maintain a level of transparency in relation to serious incidents and other matters that might arise from care provision.

See the Government of Jersey Duty of Candour (Being Open) Policy and Procedure.