Duty of Candour - Scotland and Wales Review

The impact of the Health and Social Care (Quality and Engagement) (Wales) Act 2020 which introduced the duty of candour in Wales in 2023, will be evaluated. The recommendation as laid out in the IBI inquiry report will be integrated into the specification out to tender for the evaluation research programme.
The Welsh Government welcomes any learning from the English review to add to intelligence informing any review of the Welsh NHS duty of candour.

The organisational duty of candour provisions of the Health (Tobacco, Nicotine etc. and Care) (Scotland) Act 2016 and the Duty of Candour Procedure (Scotland) Regulations 2018 set out the procedure that organisations providing health services, care services and social work services in Scotland are required by law to follow when there has been an unintended or unexpected incident that results in, or could result in, death or harm (or additional treatment is required to prevent injury that would result in death or harm).

The Scottish Government published non-statutory guidance to support the introduction of the Regulations in 2018. This guidance has recently been reviewed in conjunction with stakeholders across health care and social work sectors to take account of recent learning including learning identified from the Covid-19 pandemic. The revised non-statutory guidance was published in April and distributed to health, care and social work services.

The Scottish Government will begin engagement with stakeholders on its review of the operation of the organisational duty of candour in June 2025.

The review of the operation of the duty of candour in healthcare in Scotland was completed in December 2025. A resulting programme of work is being developed to be progressed in the new parliamentary term, which will take into account the findings of the review and focus on duty of candour, adverse events, NHS complaints, openness, and learning.