Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment has he made of the efficacy of National Pharmacy Association advice to pharmacists responding to customer complaints that no admission of error should be made to customers; and whether that advice represents a contravention of Statutory Duty of Candour.

Pharmacy regulators have set out in professional standards, that registered pharmacy professionals have a “duty of candour”, which includes an obligation to be open and honest when things go wrong and report and raise concerns. This is in line with other healthcare professionals.

The pharmacy regulator for Great Britain, the General Pharmaceutical Council’s (GPhC) inspection model, is designed to encourage the reporting and learning from errors. In fitness to practise hearings and sanctions guidance, the GPhC makes reference to the duty of candour, and that fitness to practice committees should take very seriously a finding that a pharmacy professional took deliberate steps to avoid being candid with a patient.