Duty of Candour Report for

Cherry Tree Early Years Centre 2023

All health and social care services in Scotland have a duty of candour. This is a legal requirement which means that when things go wrong and mistakes happen, the people affected understand what has happened, receive an apology, and that organisations learn how to improve for the future.

An important part of this duty is that we provide an annual report about the duty of candour in our services. This short report describes how Cherry Tree Early Years Centre has operated the duty of candour during the time between 1 April 2023 and 31 March 2024. We hope you find this report useful.

 

Cherry Tree Early Years Centre provides an early learning and childcare provision for children aged from babies until they go to school.

In the last year, there has been 0 incidents to which the duty of candour has applied. These are where the types of incident have happened which are unintended or unexpected, do not relate directly to the natural course of someone’s illness or underlying condition.

 

Type of unexpected or unintended incident	Number of times this has happened
Someone has died	0
Someone has permanently less bodily, sensory, motor, physiologic or intellectual functions	0
Someone’s treatment has increased because of harm	0
The structure of someone’s body changes because of harm	0
Someone’s life expectancy becomes shorter because of harm	0
Someone’s sensory, motor or intellectual functions is impaired for 28 days or more	0

 

If any of the events listed above had happened, we would have followed the correct procedure. This means we would have informed the parents/ person affected, apologised to them, and offered to meet with them. We would then review what happened and what went wrong and try and learn for the future.

Where something has happened that triggers the duty of candour, our staff report this to the service manager who has responsibility for ensuring that the duty of candour procedure is followed. The manager records the incident and reports as necessary to the Care Inspectorate. When an incident has happened, the manager and staff set up a learning review. This allows everyone involved to review what happened and identify changes for the future.

All new staff learn about the duty of candour at their induction. We know that serious mistakes can be distressing for staff as well as people who use care and their families. We have occupational welfare support in place for our staff if they have been affected by a duty of candour incident.

Where parents or children are affected by the duty of candour, we have arrangements in place to provide welfare support as necessary.

There has been no change to our policies and procedures as a result of the duty of candour at this time.

Signed         Susan Cole                                           Date: Aug 24