Safer Care Victoria has opened community consultation on a proposed ‘duty of candour’ law and related proposals aimed at strengthening the culture of health services.
Duty of Candour is legal duty to be open and honest with patients or their families, when something goes wrong.
Minister for Health, Martin Foley said the Victorian law would be an Australian first and would see hospitals apologise to any person seriously harmed while receiving care.
“[The State has] released the 2018 report from a former Expert Working Group appointed to advise on legislative reforms proposed in Targeting Zero, the final report of the Review of Hospital Safety and Quality Assurance in Victoria released in 2016,” Mr Foley said.
“The Government has accepted in principle all recommendations made by the report and will undertake further consultation to get the details right,” he said.
“Under the proposed law, hospitals would have an obligation to apologise to any person seriously harmed while receiving care and explain what went wrong and what action will be taken.”
“Apologies would not be admissible in court,” he said.
Mr Foley said the duty would build on existing requirements under the Australian Open Disclosure Framework.
“These new laws will ensure that in those few instances when something does go wrong, patients will always get the answers they need and lessons are always learned,” the Minister said.
“This consultation will give Victorians a chance to have a say in designing workable and effective Victorian candour and open disclosure guidelines and clinical incident review protections,” he said.
Mr Foley said the content of a new set of Victorian candour and open disclosure guidelines would be the subject of further consultation along with a proposed model of legal protections for clinical incident reviews undertaken by hospitals.
He said people could have a say on the proposed duty of candour law by participating in a survey or uploading a submission based on the survey questions before March next year.
The 84-page Expert Working Group report, including information on how to have a say, can be downloaded at this PS News link.
