Recommendation F182: Statutory duty of openness and transparency
From Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry, published 6 February 2013.
Recommendation
There should be a statutory duty on all directors of healthcare organisations to be truthful in any information given to a healthcare regulator or commissioner, either personally or on behalf of the organisation, where given in compliance with a statutory obligation on the organisation to provide it.
In brief (written by this site)
In September 2024, in commentary published in February 2026, the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England recorded the recommendation as implemented, referring to action taken regarding the statutory duty of candour and the fit and proper person framework (DHSC and NHS England, Feb 2026). Earlier, in May 2024, the Thirlwall Inquiry legal team found that the government had enacted an offence under section 92 of the Care Act 2014 covering false or misleading information supplied by healthcare providers and their directors (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.
Subject to the passage of the Care Bill, a new criminal offence will be introduced applicable to care providers that supply or publish certain types of information which is false or misleading, where that information is required to comply with a statutory or other legal obligation. The offence will allow for the prosecution of directors and senior individuals, where the offence has been committed with their consent or connivance or through their neglect, and a successful prosecution has been brought against the provider.
This offence will give providers an additional incentive to ensure data and the information it provides are accurate. The offence will aid transparency and accountability in the provision of care so that regulators, commissioners and the public have a more accurate picture about a provider’s performance. The offence will apply to those care providers that falsify certain types of management and performance information and fail to exercise due diligence. Providers that make a genuine administrative error would not be convicted, providing they have processes and procedures in place to demonstrate they took all reasonable steps and exercised due diligence.
Our current intention is that regulations will limit the application of this offence in the first instance to providers of NHS funded secondary care and, more specifically, to the patient level information on outpatient, elective and accident and emergency activity that they are required to provide to the Health and Social Care Information Centre. However, we intend to test and confirm our thinking through further consultation before draft regulations are laid.
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 say completed (27 February 2026)
The Thirlwall Inquiry has noted action taken following the conclusion of the Mid-Staffordshire Inquiry 2013.
Please see our response to recommendation 21 above for detail on the statutory Duty of Candour. Also see response to recommendation 81 for comments on the fit and proper person framework and relevant legislation.
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 “Implemented - Closed”. Table row: section 18.2 No. 182, PDF page 514.
Department of Health and Social Care says in progress (11 February 2015)
The Care Act 2014 sets out the framework of a criminal offence for a provider to supply or publish false or misleading information. The offence in the Act is very wide in its application, but can be limited via secondary legislation to apply to specific providers and information.
The Care Act received Royal Assent in May 2014 and will implement the offence in the following way:
• extends to any information supplied, published or otherwise made available in response to a statutory or other legal requirement, and not just to information provided to a regulator or commissioner, subject to the information being specified in regulations;
• is focused at an organisation level, whether corporate bodies or partnerships (referred to as “care providers”). It will only apply to Directors and other senior individuals where the offence is committed with their consent or connivance or through their neglect, and the provider organisation is also guilty of the offence; and
• is a strict liability offence at care provider level. This means that the prosecution would not have to prove that there was intent to supply or publish false or misleading information on the part of the corporate body or partnership (whether dishonestly, knowingly or wilfully). The offence will be specific to the patient level information on outpatient, elective and accident and emergency activity that providers of publicly funded NHS secondary care are required to provide to the Health and Social Care Information Centre. The offence will also be applied to Quality Accounts published by NHS Trusts. The Government intends to commence the regulations which set the scope of the offence in April 2015.
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.
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.
The Government enacted the offence of supplying, publishing or otherwise making available false or misleading information under section 92 of the Care Act 2014. The offence extended to any information supplied, published or otherwise made available in response to a statutory or other legal requirement. Public bodies which provide health services, as well as those who provide health services pursuant to arrangements made with a public body, can be prosecuted for the offence, as well as directors of such organisations.
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 colours its Extent of Implementation cell for this recommendation green, which it uses to mark evidence, identified by the legal team, that a recommendation has been clearly implemented. Table row: section 16.2 No. 182, PDF page 479.
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