Discipline NHS staff who cover up or fail to report sentinel events

The Index has not yet recorded a verbatim government response to this recommendation.

In November 2014, the government introduced a statutory (organisational) duty of candour for NHS trusts and NHS foundation trusts, with Regulation 20 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. The duty places a direct obligation upon trusts to be open and honest with patients and service users, and their families, when something goes wrong that appears to have caused or could lead to moderate harm or worse in the future (known as a ‘notifiable safety incident’).

Since November 2014, providers of health and social care registered with Care Quality Commission, including Trusts — have been required to comply with the requirements in Regulation 5 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 (known as the Fit and Proper Person Regulation)

In August 2023, NHS England published a strengthened Fit and Proper Person Test Framework in response to the 2019 Kark Review to introduce:

• a means of retaining information relating to testing the requirements of the FPPT for individual directors,

• a set of standard competencies for all board directors,

• a new way of completing references with additional content whenever a director leaves an NHS board and an extension of the applicability to some other organisations, including NHS England and the CQC.

In its January 2002 response, the Department of Health said it agreed in principle with this recommendation. The Department said it would explore, through the work of the Chief Medical Officer’s Committee on Clinical Negligence, how this could be introduced.