Duty of Candour month

February 2, 2022

This month the patient safety team will be releasing a communication highlighting the DOC process and providing different tools to help staff to complete this process. Please see the first communication of the month below.

Duty of Candour (DoC) applies to patient safety incidents resulting in moderate to severe harm including psychological harm and death.

The lead clinician, who may be any healthcare professional, is the most senior person responsible for the patient’s care within the specialty where the incident occurred and has overall responsibility for the DoC requirements. This includes completing DoC related documentation.

The lead clinician must be:

• Open, honest and transparent with the patient (and/or family)
• There must be a discussion with the patient (and/or family) within 24 hours of identifying an incident has occurred or as soon as possible. Any delays in notifying the patient must be clearly documented.
• An apology must be given.
• An incident form (if not previously done) must be completed.
• The discussion must be fully documented in the DoC tab on the Safeguard System.
• The patient must receive written confirmation of the verbal discussion within 10 days of the incident. This need to include what will happen next in terms of investigation and a contact telephone number must be given.
• The patient safety team will provide guidance of the latter stages of DOC for more serious incidents