Duty of Candour Report 2024
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, the people affected understand what has happened, receive an apology, and that organisations learn how to improve for the future.
Part of this duty is for organisations to provide an annual report about the duty of candour. This report describes how the nurseries operating within Dumfries and Galloway Council discharged this duty between 1 April 2023 and 31 March 2024.
1. About Council Nursery Services
The Council provides nursery education to approximately 1800 pupils at 45 nurseries across Dumfries and Galloway. The Council aims to provide a nursery education that enables children to grow and develop in a caring environment.
2. How many incidents happened to which the duty of candour applies?
In the last year, there was one incident to which the duty of candour applied where a pupil fell and injured themselves during an outdoor play incident and required medical treatment.
Type of unexpected or unintended incident
| Number of times this happened |
Someone has died | Zero |
Someone has permanently less bodily, sensory, motor, physiologic or intellectual functions | Zero |
Someone's treatment has increased because of harm | Zero |
The structure of someone's body changes because of harm | Zero |
Someone's life expectancy becomes shorter because of harm | Zero |
Someone's sensory, motor or intellectual functions is impaired for 28 days or more | Zero |
Someone experienced pain or psychological harm for 28 days or more | Zero |
A person needed health treatment in order to prevent them dying | Zero |
A person needed health treatment for an injury received | Once |
3. To what Extent did the Service follow the Duty of Candour
The school which the nursery is part of followed the correct procedure and informed the pupil's parents, apologised and offered to meet with them to discuss the circumstances, answer any questions and take into account their views in the school's review to try to prevent a similar accident happening in the future.
4. Information about our policies and procedures
Where something happens to trigger the duty of candour, nursery staff report this to the nursery manager and headteacher who are responsible for ensuring that the duty of candour procedure is followed. The incident is reported to the Care Inspectorate as required and the incident is also reported internally within the Council via the Council's internal incident reporting procedure. Each incident is investigated by staff at the school to identify root causes and enable remedial actions to be identified to reduce the possibility of similar accidents happening in the future. The school is able to draw on expertise from specialists such as health and safety advisers and educational specialists in the investigation process to enable lessons to be learned from each incident
New staff learn about the duty of candour at induction because serious mistakes can be distressing for staff as well as the people who use nursery facilities and their families. The Council has occupational welfare support in place for staff and they can access this if they ever need support following a duty of candour incident. The Council also has access to occupational health advice should any be required
5. What has changed as a result?
In the wake of the duty of candour incident the nursery environment and play equipment at the nursery have been reviewed to reduce the possibility of a similar incident happening in the future.
6. Other Information
The duty of Candour provides people who use nursery services with the right to know when things have not gone to plan in a nursery environment. The Council has published this report on the Council website to be open about our performance in this area.
