Consulation on duty of candour
The consultation has now closed
We ran a public consultation with the General Medical Council between 3 November 2014 and 5 January 2015. This looked at proposed new joint guidance to help nurses, midwives and doctors comply with their professional duty to be open and honest with patients about their care.
Read the Duty of candour guidance
Draft guidance
The draft guidance for consultation covered the need to learn from ‘near misses’ as well as when something goes wrong and a patient is harmed. It also advised on apologising to patients and those close to them. Clinical leaders and employers were called upon to create workplace cultures that are honest and open.
Consultation
In the consultation exercise we wanted to find out whether the advice in the draft guidance was practical and would make sense in the clinical environment. We welcomed comments from patients and the public, as well as nurses, midwives and doctors.
The questions we asked are detailed in the consultation document
Post-consultation and publication
We received over 500 responses to our consultation. After analysing the responses, we revised the draft and published final guidance on 29 June 2015. The guidance is also available in Welsh.
