Government response Department of Health NI: Accepted (Mar 2021)
Delivery Department of Health (Northern Ireland) says in progress (Oct 2022)

Recommendation IHRD-6: Support for Candour Compliance

From Report of the Inquiry into Hyponatraemia-related Deaths, published 31 January 2018.

Recommendation

Support and protection should be given to those who properly fulfil their duty of candour.

Jurisdiction: Northern Ireland

In brief (written by this site)

In an implementation update published in October 2022, the Department of Health (Northern Ireland) recorded the recommendation as in progress (Department of Health (Northern Ireland), Oct 2022). The department stated that initial work had been completed, but noted that it was now "appropriate to transfer responsibility for these recommendations from the IHRD implementation programme to the appropriate DoH policy area" (Department of Health (Northern Ireland), Oct 2022).

AI-generated summary of the record on this page, checked by a second model and automatic checks, 26 Sep 2026. The record below is the sources' own words.

About this summary

This recommendation asks for cultural or behavioural change, which is difficult to verify from published sources alone. The record reflects policy commitments rather than measured outcomes.

Government response

Accepted Department of Health NI
25 Mar 2021
Words of: Mr Swann, Minister of Health, written ministerial statement to the Northern Ireland Assembly, 25 March 2021

My Department accepts the recommendations of the O'Hara Report in their entirety.

Blanket government agreement does not establish acceptance or delivery by each addressee. Some response passages cover groups of recommendations.

Scope of the government response

The Minister of Health accepted all 96 recommendations together, in one sentence of a written statement to the Northern Ireland Assembly on 25 March 2021. That sentence is not a response to any one recommendation alone, and the Department of Health published no response to each recommendation. The Department's statements of 31 January, 2 February and 30 March 2018 contain no acceptance of the recommendations.

Delivery

Department of Health (Northern Ireland) says in progress (28 October 2022)

the 37 actions, where initial work has been completed, but where it is now appropriate to transfer responsibility for these recommendations from the IHRD implementation programme to the appropriate DoH policy area.

From: IHRD Implementation Programme Update - Departmental Statement October 2022 (document heading: Update from the Department of Health on the implementation of the report of the Inquiry into Hyponatraemia-related Deaths)

Site note: These words are from the Department of Health's document linked on this page. The Department's website asks automated tools not to fetch its document files directly, so the site cites the page that links the document.

Site note: The Department's October 2022 statement gives this passage once, for a group of 37 actions, and does not list the recommendations in the group. The site places this recommendation in it from the Department's per-action list of the same date, where Phase 2B holds 37 actions.

Source

Report Report of the Inquiry into Hyponatraemia-related Deaths 31 Jan 2018

Responsible bodies

Northern Ireland Executive Primary
HSC Trusts Primary

Who has spoken

  • Department of Health NI
    Response
  • Department of Health (Northern Ireland)
    Delivery statement
Recommendation made 8.7 years ago