We have a legal duty to be open and honest with the people we care for, which is called our Duty of Candour.

We know that openly recognising mistakes leads to improved patient safety.

This is why we actively encourage staff to report incidents so that we can learn and make improvements to the care we provide.

On the very rare occasions when things go wrong we are committed to being open and honest with our patients, their families and carers. 

We always investigate every incident and involve patients as much as we can to collect feedback which we use to make further improvements to our services.

We also always apologise, explain what has happened and what actions will be taken to reduce the risk of the same thing happening again.

Never Events

A Never Event is a serious patient safety incident that should never occur.

There is a list of 14 specific events as defined by NHS England - please see the NHS England website - Never events.

All Never Events are published in our public Board papers. 

Further information

We follow national guidance from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) - for full details see CQC > Duty of Candour.

Please see our Duty of Candour (Being Open) Policy.

We welcome all feedback

We're always looking at ways we can improve our services and welcome all feedback.

If we've cared for you recently please get in touch with our Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) and tell us how we did.