Candour

Candour is an implied requirement of the GCC Code, and the subject of the 2024/25 focused CPD reflection.

The guidance sets out professionals’ responsibility to be open and honest with patients when things go wrong with their care.

It sets out some specific requirements chiropractors must follow when things go wrong with care and treatment, including informing patients about the incident, providing reasonable support, providing truthful information and an apology when things go wrong.

Current Guidance

Candour Guidance (September 2023)

The Candour Guidance was last updated on 1 September 2023.

The updates made to the guidance include

• an emphasis on an apology as a crucial part 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.

GCC Candour Toolkit (March 2024)

The Candour Toolkit contains advice and test candour scenarios to help you reflect upon how you apply the Candour Guidance in your everyday clinical practice.

The Candour Toolkit (2024)

Patient Community Research into candour (December 2023)

Patient Community Research into candour (2023)

The Chiropractic Patient Incident Reporting and Learning System (CPiRLS)

CPiRLS is an online reporting and learning forum (independent of the GCC) that enables chiropractors to share patient safety incidents.

https://cpirls.org/

The Regulators Joint Statement on candour (2014)

Candour (2014)

Previous Candour Guidance (2016)

Candour Guidance (April 2016)