Recommendation F180: Candour about incidents
From Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry, published 6 February 2013.
Recommendation
Guidance and policies should be reviewed to ensure that they will lead to compliance with Being Open, the guidance published by the National Patient Safety Agency.
In brief (written by this site)
In September 2024 commentary published in February 2026, the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England stated that the Being Open guidance had been superseded by the organisational Duty of Candour and newer Patient Safety Incident Response Framework guidance (DHSC and NHS England, Feb 2026). In May 2024, the Thirlwall Inquiry legal team recorded that the government had accepted the recommendation and had sought to ensure duty of candour regulations were congruent with the Being Open framework (The Thirlwall Inquiry legal team, May 2024).
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.
Government response
Accepted.
As stated in recommendation 174, the intention is introduce an explicit duty of candour on providers as a Care Quality Commission registration requirement. The Department of Health will publish shortly draft regulations on a Statutory Duty of Candour during the autumn for further consultation. The Department of Health will ensure that advice such as the Being Open framework produced by the National Patient Safety Agency is considered as we consult on the new duty of candour.
How this response relates to the recommendation
Site note: This is volume two of "Hard Truths: The Journey to Putting Patients First" (Cm 8777-II), the government's response to the Inquiry's 290 recommendations, published by the Department of Health on GOV.UK on 19 November 2013 and dated to that day here. The PDF the row links to is the accessible edition, whose title page reads "January 2014". The Department of Health has been the Department of Health and Social Care since January 2018. The volume says it includes accounts from each of the national organisations the recommendations name, but it does not mark which passage each organisation wrote, so every row is filed under the Department that published it.
Blanket government agreement does not establish acceptance or delivery by each addressee. Some response passages cover groups of recommendations.
Scope of the government response
Government responded via "Hard Truths: The Journey to Putting Patients First" (2014), a single document covering all 290 recommendations with a blanket acceptance. Individual recommendation responses were not broken out.
Delivery
DHSC and NHS England state no delivery position (27 February 2026)
The 'Being Open' guidance has been superseded by the creation of the organisational Duty of Candour and the latest guidance under the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework regarding ''Engaging and involving patients, families and staff following a patient safety incident''.
Site note: DHSC and NHS England's own account of progress, supplied to the Thirlwall Inquiry in September 2024 and printed in the Inquiry legal team's Review of Implementation of Recommendations from Previous Inquiries into Healthcare Issues (version dated April 2025, published 27 February 2026). It is not a finding of the Inquiry. Their reviewed extent of implementation reads “Superseded”. Table row: section 18.2 No. 180, PDF page 512.
Department of Health and Social Care says in progress (11 February 2015)
As stated in the progress update to recommendation 174, the Department of Health has put in place a new statutory duty of candour as a requirement for registration with the Care Quality Commission that has applied to NHS organisations since November 2014 and will come into effect for other organisations from April 2015. The Department of Health has worked to ensure that the regulations take account of, and are congruent with, the Being Open framework produced by the National Patient Safety Agency.
Site note: This is the supporting annex published on 11 February 2015 with "Culture change in the NHS: applying the lessons of the Francis Inquiries" (Cm 9009), attached to the GOV.UK page as "Culture change in the NHS supporting annex". The annex has no title page; that title is GOV.UK's and the PDF's own. Its table has four columns (No., Recommendation, Hard Truths Government response, Progress update), and the row carries the Progress update cell. No column says which organisation wrote an update, so the row is filed under the Department of Health (now the Department of Health and Social Care), which published it.
Site note: The Inquiry addressed this recommendation to healthcare providers, not to the Department of Health. The annex gives this update in the Department's publication and does not say who wrote it, so the row is the Department's report of the progress made on it.
What other bodies have found
In their own words. These do not change the delivery statement above.
Thirlwall Inquiry legal team (15 May 2024)
This recommendation was accepted by the Government.
In the January 2014 Hard Truths report, the Government said that advice such as the Being Open framework would be considered as it consulted on the planned duty of candour.
In the February 2015 Culture Change report, the Government said that the Department of Health had worked to ensure that the duty of candour regulations were congruent with the Being Open framework.
Site note: The Thirlwall Inquiry legal team's own notes on implementation, from its Review of Implementation of Recommendations from Previous Inquiries into Healthcare Issues (version of 15 May 2024). The review does not colour its Extent of Implementation cell for this recommendation green; it leaves the cell uncoloured where a recommendation was rejected, where evidence of implementation was insufficient, or where steps had been taken but implementation was not yet complete. Table row: section 16.2 No. 180, PDF page 478.
Source
Responsible bodies
Themes and tags
Who has spoken
- Department of Health and Social Care
Response, delivery statement - DHSC and NHS England
Delivery statement - Thirlwall Inquiry legal team
Finding