Last week the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) published new resources to help pharmacists and pharmacy technicians to fulfil their professional responsibility to be open and honest with patients when something goes wrong – known as the duty of candour.

What is duty of candour?

Duty of candour is a fundamental part of pharmacy professional practice and the GPhC’s two new resources aim to fully explain the professional obligations of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians in regard to this subject. You can access and download the resources here.

What is included in the resources?

The GPhC’s guidance sheet brings together information on existing policy and standards, whilst the additional toolkit includes real examples of how pharmacy teams have learned from incidents, drawn from the GPhC’s inspections of community pharmacies. All pharmacy teams are urged to use the new toolkit to prompt learning and reflection during pharmacy team meetings or other discussions.

Chief Executive of the GPhC, Duncan Rudkin, said:

“Pharmacists and pharmacy technicians, across different settings, work hard to provide person-centred, safe and effective care to patients. But sometimes things go wrong. The way that professionals respond to these situations is key to supporting the people affected and improving patient safety for the future.

“Our new resources highlight the importance of saying sorry. Apologising to a patient does not mean that a professional is admitting legal liability for what has happened. It’s an acknowledgement that something could have gone better, and gives an opportunity for learning to improve patient safety outcomes and minimise the risk of the same thing happening again.”