Duty of Candour for Healthcare Professionals

Duty of Candour for Healthcare Professionals course focuses on the ethical and professional responsibility to be open, honest, and transparent when things go wrong in healthcare. In Canada, patients and families expect timely disclosure, clear explanations, and compassionate communication following adverse events, errors, or unexpected outcomes. Canadian regulatory Colleges consistently emphasise that lack of candour can undermine trust and escalate complaints, often more seriously than the original incident itself. This course explains how duty of candour is assessed by regulators and why openness, integrity, and accountability are central to safe and professional practice.

The course is suitable for all healthcare professionals in Canada, including physicians, nurses, pharmacists, dentists, allied health practitioners, and others involved in patient care and safety. It is particularly relevant for practitioners who have been involved in adverse events, near misses, complaints, or investigations, or who want greater confidence in difficult disclosure conversations. The course takes a practical, regulator-aligned approach to recognising when candour is required, communicating honestly without speculation or defensiveness, offering appropriate apologies, applying culturally safe and trauma-informed principles, and documenting disclosure conversations clearly and professionally.

By completing this course, participants will gain confidence in meeting their duty of candour in a structured, ethical, and compassionate manner. Learners will develop insight into common barriers to openness, how disclosure failures occur, and how reflective practice, remediation, and team-based approaches reduce future risk. The course supports ongoing CPD and helps practitioners demonstrate professionalism, accountability, cultural safety, and trustworthiness while rebuilding and maintaining trust with patients, families, colleagues, and regulators across Canadian healthcare settings.