Duty of Candour guidance updated

Chiropractors (as healthcare professionals) have a professional duty of candour (standard B7 in The Code). This is a responsibility to be open and honest with patients when things go wrong with their care.

The relationship between a chiropractor and a patient is built on trust, confidence, and honesty. Being open and transparent with patients is important as it contributes to establishing and maintaining a professional relationship and it encourages patients to take an informed role in their care.

The GCC has reviewed the guidance around the Duty of Candour, and issued an updated version.

The changes to the previous version include:

• an emphasis on an apology as a crucial part of the Duty of Candour - when something goes wrong with a patient’s care, apologising to the patient is always the right thing to do and is not an admission of liability.
• an emphasis that adverse events do not only apply to injuries arising from hands-on care but can also include, for example, therapeutic advice or information provided (or not provided) and care involving exercise prescription.
• a new section on being open and honest with patients about near misses and to use professional judgement when considering whether to tell patients about an adverse incident that has not caused (and will not cause) them harm.

We are now developing a toolkit, informed by research with patients, that will contain practical steps to give registrants confidence in applying the Duty of Candour.