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Safety and quality

Protecting patients, colleagues and others from harm

Key points

You must raise concerns about patient care and safety, including any practitioner’s fitness to practise.
Raising a concern is also known as whistleblowing.
In some circumstances you are protected in law when you raise a concern.
You should act quickly.
You should keep a record of any concerns.
You must protect patient confidentiality.
You should record adverse incidents centrally, for example in your practice’s system or in the practice Accident Book.
Using your practice systems, you should ensure that near misses involving NHS-funded patients are appropriately reported to the relevant body for each nation .

B96

This Guidance does not change what you must do under the law.

Raising concerns

B97

The safety, dignity and care of patients must come first, and you must act quickly to protect patients from risks posed by colleagues and premises, equipment or other resources, policies or health systems/services which fail to meet minimum standards. If you have serious concerns about any practitioner’s fitness to practise, you should raise this with them first if you feel able to and, if not, with an appropriate person in your organisation.

B98

If necessary. you should escalate your concerns to an appropriate person.²¹⁹ This could be the colleague’s line manager, employer, or person in a primary care organisation or hospital. If you remain concerned, you should consult the relevant professional, representative or regulatory body.

B99

Raising a concern is different from making a complaint. If you make a complaint, you might be asked for evidence to prove your case. When you raise a concern, you should not be expected to prove the issue you are concerned about, although you do need to have a reasonable belief that wrongdoing is happening, has taken place in the past, or is likely to happen in the future. If you are not sure whether you should act, ask yourself:

what might the outcome be in the short- or longer-term if I do not raise my concern?
how could I justify not raising the concern?

See section on Working with colleagues.

B100

Examples of what you should report include:

very poor treatment
failure to gain patient consent to treatment
cross-infection problems, for example use of dirty equipment
sexual assault or abuse. See section on Maintaining boundaries
practising under the influence of drink or drugs
fraud or theft
inadequate malpractice insurance.

B101

You should:

act quickly
keep a record of the concerns you have raised, and actions you have taken. The record should be as detailed as possible, and not influenced by your personal feelings or opinions. The record should be verifiable or auditable, and you should keep a timeline record of any communications.

B102

You must protect patient confidentiality. See section on Confidentiality.

B103

In certain circumstances, you are protected in law from harassment or bullying when you raise a concern. This is known as ‘protected disclosure’.^{220, 221}If you are making what you believe to be a protected disclosure, you should make it clear to the person you are making the disclosure to that you believe the disclosure to be protected, and your reasons for this.

B104

In order to receive the protections of the Public Interest Disclosure Act, you must follow your employer’s policy, if it is a reasonable one. If you feel that your employer’s policy is not reasonable, contact your professional or representative body, or you can contact Public Concern at Work.²²²

B105

You should be able to raise your concern confidentially, so your name is not revealed unless this is required by law. When you raise your concern, you need to make it clear if you are doing so confidentially. This is different from raising a concern anonymously, when you refuse to give your name.

References

²¹⁹ General Optical Council (2016) Standards of practice for optometrists and dispensing opticians para 11.3 [Accessed 1 Nov 2023]
²²⁰ The Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 [Accessed 1 Nov 2023]
²²¹ The Public Interest Disclosure (Northern Ireland) Order 1998 [Accessed 1 Nov 2023]
²²² Protect - Speak up, stop harm [Accessed 1 Nov 2023]

Adverse incidents and near misses

B106

An adverse incident is where harm has occurred, and a near miss is where harm could have occurred.

B107

If an adverse incident occurs you should:

apologise to the patient
explain what has happened
explain any remedial action.

This is what is meant by the duty of candour.

B108

If necessary, you should also:

investigate the adverse incident
take the appropriate action
keep a written record.

B109

You should record any adverse incident somewhere central to the practice, for example in your practice’s system or in the practice Accident Book. This applies even if it was not due to any fault of the practice or practitioner.

B110

If a near miss occurs, you should learn from it and you should reassure the patient if you think it caused them concern.

B111

You should report any near misses or adverse clinical incidents involving patients receiving NHS-funded care:

in England and Wales to the National Reporting and Learning System (NRLS). This does not collect any patient or practitioner identifiable information²²³
in Scotland to your local health board²²⁶
in Northern Ireland to the Northern Ireland Adverse Incident Centre.²²⁴

B112

If the adverse incident was due to a drug or medical device you should report this to the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, as appropriate.^225, ²²⁷ See sections on Infection control and Use and supply of drugs or medicines in optometric practice.