If you run or manage a healthcare service in Crewe, whether that is a care home, a GP surgery, a dental practice, or any other CQC registered provider, the duty of candour is something every member of your clinical and leadership team needs to understand. It is a legal requirement, not a guideline, and getting it wrong can have serious consequences for your organisation, your staff, and most importantly, for the patients and families affected.
But beyond the legal obligation, the duty of candour is fundamentally about doing the right thing. When something goes wrong in a patient's care, they deserve to know. Their family deserves to know. And your organisation deserves the chance to learn from what happened so it does not happen again.
We are PCT Services, and we deliver CPD accredited training for healthcare professionals from our training centre at First Floor, 2 Queen Street in Northwich, about a 25 minute drive from Crewe. We offer Clinical Supervision training now, and our Duty of Candour course is coming soon.
What is the duty of candour?
The duty of candour was introduced under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014, following recommendations from the Francis Report into failures at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust. It requires all CQC registered healthcare providers to be open and transparent with patients and their families when a notifiable safety incident occurs.
In practice, this means that when something goes wrong in a patient's care and it causes, or could cause, harm, the organisation must notify the patient or their family as soon as reasonably practicable, provide a truthful account of what happened, offer an apology, and explain what is being done to investigate and prevent it from happening again.
This applies to every CQC registered provider in Crewe. Care homes where a resident suffers a fall that causes harm. GP surgeries where a diagnosis is missed or delayed. Dental practices where a procedure goes wrong. Pharmacies where a dispensing error occurs. The duty applies regardless of the size of the organisation or the severity of the incident, as long as it meets the threshold of a notifiable safety incident.
Why training matters
Most healthcare professionals understand the principle of honesty. But having a difficult conversation with a patient who has been harmed, or with a family who has lost a loved one because of an error, is one of the hardest things anyone in healthcare can be asked to do. Without training, people avoid these conversations, delay them, or handle them in ways that make things worse.
Common mistakes include being too defensive, using clinical jargon that the patient or family does not understand, offering an explanation that sounds like an excuse, or failing to follow up in writing as required. Each of these can turn a difficult situation into a complaint, a legal claim, or a regulatory investigation.
Training gives your team a clear framework for these conversations. It teaches them how to be honest and compassionate at the same time, how to manage their own emotions during the conversation, and how to follow the process correctly so that the legal requirements are met.
For care homes in Crewe, where staff are looking after vulnerable residents and communicating with anxious families, getting this right is especially important. CQC inspectors look at how your organisation handles incidents, and a failure to meet the duty of candour requirements can affect your rating.
Clinical Supervision: Building the right culture
The duty of candour does not work in a vacuum. It sits within a broader culture of openness, reflective practice, and learning from incidents. If your staff are afraid of being blamed when things go wrong, they will not be open about mistakes. If there is no culture of reflection and learning, the same errors will keep happening.
That is where clinical supervision comes in. Our Clinical Supervision course is a two day CPD accredited programme that teaches healthcare professionals how to engage in structured reflection on their practice. It covers the models and frameworks of supervision, the skills of effective supervision conversations, and the ethical dimensions including confidentiality and accountability.
For Crewe healthcare teams, clinical supervision creates the foundation that makes the duty of candour possible. Staff who have regular, supportive supervision are more likely to raise concerns early, reflect on near misses, and approach difficult situations with confidence rather than fear.
The course is CPD accredited, with a certificate valid for three years, and groups can be up to 20 people. Check the upcoming dates on our Clinical Supervision page.
Clinical Supervision
This two day Clinical Supervision programme provides multidisciplinary professionals with the skills and knowledge to deliver clinical supervision effectively within the workplace. It is tailored to meet the regulatory requirements of NHS organisations and designed to incorporate individual Trusts local Clinical Supervision arrangements.
Who needs this training?
In Crewe's healthcare settings, the people who most need to understand the duty of candour include care home managers and deputy managers, registered nurses, GP practice partners and practice managers, dental practice principals and managers, pharmacy superintendents, clinical leads, and anyone in a role where they might need to lead the conversation with a patient or family following an incident.
Clinical supervision training is valuable for a broader range of staff, including nurses, therapists, counsellors, senior carers, and anyone in a supervisory or mentoring role within a healthcare setting.
Our Duty of Candour course is coming soon
We are currently developing a dedicated Duty of Candour course that will cover the legal framework, the practical steps for disclosure conversations, how to handle difficult emotional responses from patients and families, documentation requirements, and how to link duty of candour to wider governance and learning processes. It will be a half day CPD accredited course.
If this is something your Crewe healthcare team needs, get in touch and we will add you to the notification list so you are the first to know when dates are available.
Duty of Candour
CPD accredited training covering the statutory and professional duty of candour in health and social care settings. This course is coming soon. Register your interest to be notified when dates are available.
Book Clinical Supervision now
In the meantime, if you want to start building a reflective culture in your Crewe healthcare organisation, our Clinical Supervision course is available now. Check the upcoming dates on our Clinical Supervision page and book your places directly. Or give us a call on 07958 915146 and we can discuss what would work best for your team.
Getting duty of candour right starts with getting the culture right. And that starts with training.
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