The Statutory Duty Of Candour (SDC) legislation came into effect on 30 November 2022. This means we must deliver a sincere apology to a patient or their family when they have suffered moderate to serious harm following a serious adverse patient safety event (SAPSE).
In a previous article, we covered the requirements of the SDC and the new training module available on Latte. In this article, we take a closer look at the support available to you, including incident management, processes and resources.
SDC – Incident management
Incident management will generally include the following phases:
- Recognise when things have gone wrong
- Act immediately to reduce risk and harm to the consumer – provide immediate care to the individual(s) involved, make the situation safe, notify the appropriate people (medical team, responsible manager, security, etc.)
- Notify and classify the incident on RiskMan – report the incident as soon as possible, ensure your line manager is notified and provide as much objective and factual detail as possible.
- Confirm the incident severity rating and format for the review
- Continue to manage the incident
Under the new SDC, if a patient suffers a SAPSE (ISR 1 or 2) while receiving health care, we are now legally obligated to provide that patient with a sincere apology or expression of regret within 24hrs of the incident being identified and the harm being confirmed. This should include the words ‘I am sorry’ or ‘we are sorry’, and describe the steps that will be taken to review the incident.
Requirements, reviews, definitions, example scripts, timelines, workflows and recommendations for managing incidents under the SDC can all be found in our updated clinical incident management procedure (below). The important thing is that you continue to follow the steps above and know that you will be supported.
SDC – Support
Quality Partners and other Quality and Safety Unit members are automatically notified of all ISR 1 and 2 clinical incidents via RiskMan alerts and will be available to support.
The Quality and Safety Unit (Quality Partner) will review the facts of the incident (and resulting patient outcome) and confirm this with the relevant Senior Manager as soon as possible (and within 24 hours of the clinical incident being entered into RiskMan).
From there, the senior manager (Unit Director or delegate), supported by the Patient Experience Office will be responsible for providing a verbal apology within 24 hours of the incident being confirmed as a SAPSE.
If you require additional support, please reach out to your relevant Quality Partner or the Quality and Safety Unit. .
SDC – Resources
More information, requirements, workflows, timelines and example scripts can be found in our Clinical incident management procedure, which has been updated to align with the new Statutory Duty of Candour legislation. The procedure is available below or by searching ‘Duty of Candour’, ‘Incident Management’ or ‘Open Disclosure’ in Prompt.
To assist with documenting and monitoring in our EMR, a new ‘EMR verbal apology Powerform’ QRG is now available and will help you locate the Verbal Apology (Open Disclosure or SDC) Powerform, complete and submit the Powerform, and access the Verbal Apology Brochure.
Approved by Kate MacDermid and Anjali Dhulia