The words to use
- Professional duty of candour
- Every doctor's and nurse's personal duty to be open when something goes wrong: tell the patient, apologise, offer a remedy or support, and explain the likely effects.
- Statutory duty of candour
- The legal duty on health and care providers in England, under regulation 20 since 2014, to tell patients about notifiable safety incidents, apologise and follow up in writing.
- Freedom to Speak Up guardian
- Someone in an NHS organisation who helps staff raise concerns that aren't being heard. National support for guardians moved to NHS England in July 2026.
- Just culture
- A culture that asks what went wrong and why, supports people after honest errors, and still holds them to account for reckless or deliberate acts.
- Near miss
- An incident that could have caused harm but didn't. Whether to tell the patient is a professional judgement; if unsure, ask a senior.
