The Consequences of Failing to Discharge the Duty of Candour

The Government accepted a recommendation from the Francis Report (2013) for a statutory organisational duty of candour to encourage openness and transparency in health services to prevent a repeat of the deliberate concealment of poor care and negligence found in the Mid Staffordshire Hospital scandal (Department of Health (DH), 2014).

The Government went further and argued that, unless health professionals were also professionally obliged to report poor practice and admit mistakes, then a culture of openness would not develop (DH, 2014).

There are two forms of the duty that now apply to nurses in England: an organisational duty that is imposed on the employing trust and a professional duty imposed by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC). These duties have been in place since the spring of 2015 and cases are beginning to emerge where action has been taken against nurses and their employers in cases when there has been a failure to discharge a duty of candour.