Debate contribution: Statutory Duty of Candour

Debate contribution by Mr Gerry Carroll on 11 November 2024.

MLA

Mr Gerry Carroll

Party at the time

People Before Profit Alliance

Date

11 November 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Statutory Duty of Candour

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4667947

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Being open and honest when things go wrong is definitely the right thing to do, and I pay tribute to all the families who have campaigned for that — the families of former patients of Dr Watt, the Roberts family and all those who have been mentioned so far. As the motion states, the vast majority of health and social care workers are committed to providing the highest quality of care. Many already work according to professional codes of practice under a de facto individual duty of candour, and placing a duty of candour for individuals and organisations on a statutory footing may help to ensure that more patients and their families get the honesty and transparency that they deserve. However, in reality, health and social care workers are scared to speak up because they know that they will be bullied and intimidated by management if they do. Multiple health unions have reported that their members do not feel supported enough to raise issues about unsafe staffing levels and high vacancy rates. Unsafe staffing levels, as has been mentioned, is just one factor contributing to massive amounts of pressure on the workforce. In the context of the —.

Sure, yes.

I agree with the Member, and proper budgets that properly fund our health service are needed too. I agree with the Member on disappointment about the lack of legislation. In the context of these broader pressures and systemic failings, it is unsurprising that mistakes are made. However, the focus should not be solely on the individual worker who is dealing with an unsustainable workload, persistently low pay and high pressure. The focus should be on the wider system that brings about those conditions. This is a health and social care system with — the last time that I checked — over 5,000 vacancies. That is just crazy. We have a system that contracts private companies to provide social care services and tells workers to deliver complex personal care during 15-minute home visits. How many issues around standards of care and safeguarding are caused here? It is a system that breaks its promise to maintain pay parity for workers — I direct Members to their inboxes. As people have said, we also need to see systemic culture change across our health and social care system. That is badly needed. It is basic common sense that our health and social care organisations and senior managers should reflect on existing systems and procedures when things go wrong. That does not always happen, to put it mildly. Workers report a culture of corporate protection, blame and cover-up on the part of senior managers in health and social care bodies. I have heard that far too many times. Our health and social care system must develop a culture of openness and learning to improve patient safety, and an organisational duty of candour will be part of the change that is needed. The Department of Health's 2021 consultation on the introduction of a duty of candour was severely lacking in detail about how the duty would be implemented and who would be responsible for its outworkings. It cannot be left to the underpaid, understaffed and overstretched workers on the front line. It should fall to the departmental heads, permanent secretaries and senior staff in the Department. I also support the call for the Executive, as the motion says, to:

"engage with the UK Government around the implications of the proposed Hillsborough law".

That has long been fought for by working-class communities who experienced tragic injustice and had their good name besmirched by a rotten Tory Government.

Being open and honest about unethical and unacceptable behaviour should be the norm. There should be a culture of transparency and accountability that allows workers to feel safe in speaking out and not to be targeted or victimised. The ultimate focus of the duty of candour should extend beyond the workers on the front line to HSC bodies, organisations and senior management. A separate duty of candour should also apply to Ministers, who should have an obligation to be open and honest about the issues plaguing our health and social care system. A duty of candour might compel Ministers to explain cuts and closures, the downgrading of services and the creeping privatisation of our health and social care system and its effect on the standard of care. The Executive owe the public honesty and transparency about the implications of their decision-making, and they should be clear about the consequences of years of reconfiguration, privatisation and underinvestment and the impact that all that has on people's clinical outcomes, quality of life and health inequalities.

773 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:35 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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