The duty of candour applies to everyone who is involved in delivering care, which means everyone that your care business employs. As a Registered Manager or owner of a care business, compliance is your responsibility. You have to be confident that everyone understands what duty of candour means and how they are expected to behave should harm or risk of harm occur.
Here’s a simple test you can use. If you asked team members, at random, to describe a notifiable incident that would trigger the duty of candour obligation, and to explain the notification process, what sort of answers would you get?
A similar argument can be made with all of the Fundamental Standards that apply to care providers. The expectations are clear and CQC inspectors will expect to see that standards are both understood and followed. With large numbers of staff, who might work different shifts or deliver care remotely, this is a significant burden of responsibility.
Meeting your compliance obligations means having staff who understand what they are supposed to do. More than this it also demands a culture that supports and encourages everyone to do the right thing when something goes wrong. Meeting the duty of candour requires openness, where concerns and complaints are raised freely and are seen to be handled appropriately.
Staff Training Encourages Openness and Honesty
It’s clearly unreasonable to expect everyone to know instinctively, or work out for themselves, what they should do if there is a concern. Turning a blind eye, covering up mistakes and not wanting to rock the boat are all instinctive behaviours that work against duty of candour.
Staff training is essential to promote a culture that encourages candour, openness and honesty at all levels as well as the knowledge. In fact, formal training is one of the strongest signals that a management team can send out about how they expect people to behave. In many ways, it’s the crucial difference between people knowing that they should be open and honest about any incidents relating to care or treatment and knowing that they MUST be.
The training needs to support both personal and organisational learning if you are to build a team that always responds positively, promptly and professionally to incidents and concerns affecting the safety of people who use your service. The best way to do this efficiently and cost-effectively is to work with a specialist training provider that can offer essential training in elements of care that relate to this key area of behaviour and performance.
Contact us today on 01823 332 200 for more information and to find a training package that best suits your business’ needs.
