Medical professionals should admit mistakes and apologise to patients and provide face to face explanation to patients, according to a set of new guidance from the General Medical Council (GMC) and the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC).
The new guidance, which is applicable to doctors, nurses and midwives practising in the UK, also expects that professionals be provided with an open, honest and supportive environment where they feel comfortable; can learn from mistakes; and report incidents that may have led to harm.
According to the new guidance, doctors, nurses and midwives should speak with the patient or their close relatives as soon as possible after they realise something has gone wrong with their care.
Further, they should also apologise to the patient, explain what really happened and what can be done in case they have suffered harm. Medical professionals are also expected to tell them what will be done so that such an instance is not repeated again so as to prevent someone else being harmed in the future.
The doctors, nurses and midwives are also expected to use their professional judgement whether they should inform patients about near misses – incidents which have the potential to result in harm but do not.
They are also report errors as quickly as possible and at the earliest of stages so that they can be rectified, lessons learned and patients are protected from harm in the future.
The guidance also wants that medical professional don’t try to prevent colleagues or former colleagues from raising concerns about patient safety. Managers must make sure that if people do raise concerns they are protected from unfair criticism, detriment or dismissal.
The guidance has been jointly produced by the GMC and NMC to make sure that doctors, nurses and midwives are working together to a common professional standard and behaving in the same way – especially when mistakes are made. In England the professional duty of candour will sit alongside a legal obligation on organisations with similar measures being introduced in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
