NHS trust fined over lack of honesty with family after mother’s death

Watchdog prosecuted the first NHS trust for breaching duty of candour rules in September last year

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An NHS trust has been fined twice by the care watchdog over a lack of honesty with a family following the death of a woman in childbirth.

Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals Foundation Trust was issued with the fixed penalty fines by the Care Quality Commission after the trust failed to comply with the law around the NHS duty of candour.

This requires hospitals to be transparent with families when a serious harm incident occurs and commits the NHS to a full investigation and apology for any mistakes.

The two fines, totally £2,500 are the maximum the CQC can levy against a trust for a breach of the rules which were first brought in November 2014, in the wake of the public inquiry into the Mid Staffordshire care scandal where hundreds of patients suffered neglect and poor care.

The CQC said the fines followed its investigation into an incident in July 2018 when a woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, died after complications during birth at the trust.

According to the watchdog the trust failed to notify the family as soon as possible after the incident and then breached the regulations again by not providing the family with a full account of what happened or an offer of an apology in a timely manner.

Despite the laws around duty of candour being in place for more than six years, the watchdog has rarely issued a fine and only prosecuted one NHS trust.

University Hospitals Plymouth Trust was prosecuted in September last year, following a patient death in 2017.

Sarah Dronsfield, head of hospital inspection for the north, said: “Under the duty of candour, all providers are required to be open with patients or their families when something goes wrong or that appears to have caused significant harm.

“Where CQC find evidence that this has not happened, we will take action, as we have done against Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals Trust.

“We issued two fixed penalty notices following the death of a patient at the trust and their handling of notifying the family in 2018. There was a significant delay in following the duty of candour and the family did not receive a formal apology from the trust until early 2021.

“The amount of this fine is in no way reflective of the value of the life that was lost, but is the maximum amount we can fine an organisation for breaching the duty of candour regulation.”

She said the trust response to incidents would continue to be monitored.

David Purdue, chief nurse and deputy chief executive at the trust said: “We accept the findings of the Care Quality Commission, and have updated and improved our procedures. As a trust we apologise unreservedly to the family in question.”