Duty of Candour Policy and Procedure (Wales)

To meet the requirements of the Duty of Candour, Crystal Care Solutions must make public commitments to transparency, openness and fairness in relation to the care and treatment of young people in our care.

A notifiable incident is an unintended/unexpected incident that happens to the young person whilst in our care which in the reasonable opinion of a health care professional could have or has resulted in:

• The death of a young person; or
• Severe harm, moderate harm or prolonged physiological harm.

The professional regulator or other relevant body must be notified in person and then with a written notification including:

• A factual account of the incident;
• An apology;
• What further enquiries will be taking place;
• Confirmation of when an update will be provided;
• A further notification, including an apology and details of the outcome of any further investigations.

This policy and procedure and its distribution forms part of the commitment of Crystal Care Solutions to be open and transparent with the professional regulator or other relevant body when things go wrong. Crystal Care Solutions will ensure that relevant persons are informed as soon as possible of any notifiable incident.

Crystal Care Solutions will:

• Ensure encourage a culture of openness and transparency throughout the organisation;
• Lead by example through their day to day actions and in their communications;
• Support employees at all levels to follow the commitment; ensuring they are not obstructed to do so;
• Take action to remedy any incident of bullying and/or harassment related to duty of candour.

Any incident where an individual has been obstructed in carrying out their duty of candour will be investigated.

All staff must be made aware of their personal responsibility to report incidents regardless of whether they are covered by this regulation. Each employee will be given the time to read and understand the policy and procedures at the point of induction. Duty of candour will be discussed at one to ones. Staff will be reminded through these communications that attempts by other staff to prevent them from reporting incidents is bullying/harassment, and that they should report this immediately to their manager, or if the pressure is from their manager, a representative of Crystal Care Solutions. Staff should be reminded that if they are unsure whether an incident is reportable, that they should report this anyway.

All staff must report incidents defined in this policy in written form in a clear and accurate way that becomes a permanent record using the Accidents and Incidents Form, even if a verbal report has been made. The report must be made to the person on duty in charge of the home at the time of the incident who must then formally report this to the Registered Manager, if they are not the same person, as soon as possible.

The Registered Manager should:

• Carry out an initial assessment of whether the report includes details of a notifiable incident under the regulation. If the conclusion is yes, or borderline, continue with this procedure;
• Inform the Responsible Individual of the incident report, and agree with them who is the most appropriate person to continue the procedure. If the Responsible Individual takes over the role they should continue the process using this procedure;
• If it is considered the incident is not a notifiable incident under Regulation 12 and Regulation 79, follow normal incident reporting procedures alone.

As with all incidents, it is of utmost importance that this policy is used alongside the relevant external notification procedures to:

• Ensure relevant agencies are notified;
• If an investigations is required, that there is an understanding of roles and responsibilities.

If a breach of candour is found to have occurred following an investigation, and that this breach was by a professionally registered person, then that person should be reported to their professional registration body for further investigation.