As of April 1st 2018, health and social care providers in Scotland became bound by the duty of candour. In Laymen’s terms, this means providers must take steps to be more transparent with people who receive their care and, perhaps more importantly, learn from mistakes that are made.
Why the change?
Duty of candour responsibilities have been extended to health and social care providers in Scotland to ensure organisations are open, honest and supportive when an unexpected or unintended incident occurs, that results in either death or harm. And, on the back of such events, make changes to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
The key principles underlying the duty of candour include:
What does it mean?
Under the new duty, providers will need to take specific steps following an incident, like:
The duty also requires all care services to submit an annual report showing how many times they followed the duty of candour, what they learnt and what steps were made in light of those learnings.
How will this affect my Care Inspectorate rating?
The Care Inspectorate are working alongside other health and social care organisations to support the duty of candour. For simplicity, they’ve been asked to integrate the reporting and monitoring aspect of the duty into their existing notification processes.
Need some support?
If reading this has sparked concern about how you‘ll implement the duty of candour into your service’s policies and procedures, don’t panic – we can help.
When it comes to Health & Safety and HR in the care sector, we’re the experts. To see just how much we can start supporting you today, get in touch with the team on 0345 844 1111 or hello@citation.co.uk.
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