Information surrounding the GPhC resources on the duty of candour.
30 June 2022
APTUK welcomes the new GPhC resources released relating to duty of candour.
The GPhC have recently published two new resources on the duty of candour. The resources highlight that the duty of candour is not an add-on – it’s a fundamental part of pharmacy professional practice. These resources bring together relevant existing GPhC policy, standards, and previous statements on pharmacy professionals’ professional obligations with respect to candour when things go wrong.
APTUK welcomes these resources. Pharmacy technicians, as part of the whole pharmacy team, must speak up when they have concerns or when things go wrong, and empower others to do so too. The duty of candour process must happen at the first opportunity, and begins with communication and supporting the individual patient involved in a timely and appropriate way.
We recognise at APTUK the importance of learning from errors and how an open and honest approach to errors or incidents:
- Positively and directly impacts patient care
- Facilitates learning and reflection
- Prompts reviews of processes to mitigate against similar incidents in the future
Keeping patients safe: being open and honest when things go wrong looks at what the GPhC standards, guidance and a joint statement with other health professional regulators say about the duty of candour. It also considers the duty of candour in the context of fitness to practise investigations as well as how it is embedded through education and training.
Pharmacy team toolkit: learning from incidents includes real case studies and examples of notable practice about how pharmacy teams have learned from incidents, to improve patient safety outcomes and minimise the risk of these happening again. The slides in this toolkit can be used as prompts for individual reflection and learning and can be shared and discussed with pharmacy team colleagues in meetings.
APTUK will also be celebrating World Patient Safety Day on 17th September 2022, where the theme is Medication Safety and how pharmacy technicians directly impact patient safety in a wide variety of roles.