Duty of Care and Candour

Overview

A “duty of care” in its broadest sense means not being careless or negligent by taking reasonable steps to avoid harm. Employers have a duty of care to you as an employee or volunteer for  but you also have a duty of care to your service user/patient.

A “duty of candour” is defined as being “open and transparent when something has gone wrong”.  The importance of reporting errors, mistakes or accidents is part of your duty of candour and being honest about the circumstances which lead up to the incident shows you can meet this standard.

Working in health and social care means you have a responsibility to care for individuals, promote their wellbeing, and prevent them from anything that results in harm. However, there may also be instances where dilemmas may occur when an individual does not wish to do something which may result in harm being caused.

Understanding how you work with such a dilemma will be an element of your training and developing your experience as you grow within your role. However, this may occur if you feel that your views or opinions about a patient/service users care or treatment/needs or wishes are deliberately not being listened to.  Although another person may not agree with your view point, it is important that they listen to you and explain why their view may differ so that you can understand their decision, or challenge where necessary.

Why is this important

In recent years there has been increasing emphasis on honesty and transparency across health and social care providers particularly because a number of incidents have lead to poor outcomes for patients/service users.

The duties of “care” and “candour” affect every person working in health and social care, not only those who provide direct patient/service user care treatment and support.

As a support worker you will undertake a significant number of contact hours with your service users/patients and are therefore, often best placed to raise concerns about their experience, barriers which they are facing, or issues which may impact on their recovery.  If you do not feel your views are being listened to, find different ways of communicating these with your peers, managers and those you perceive as being in a higher position than yourself to make decisions.  Do not wait to raise a concern or dilemma if it means that patient safety is compromised.

Skills Review

Having completed this sub-topic I will understand the importance of these skills.

• I understand what the duties of “care” and “candour” mean and I am able to raise any concerns I have about incidents, accidents, or complaints which may impact on service users and patients.