NHS will have to admit mistakes: minister The move, announced by health minister Dr Dan Poulter, is an attempt to pre-empt the Francis inquiry report into the scandal at Mid-Staffordshire Foundation Trust which is due to report in the New Year. Hundreds of patients died needlessly in appalling conditions at Stafford Hospital and the far reaching inquiry is expected to make a number of fundamental recommendations. Dr Poulter said: "Patients place great faith in the NHS organisations that treat them, and they in turn have a duty to be honest and open about every aspect of care they deliver. When mistakes are made, we want them acknowledged, patients informed and lessons to be learnt. The importance of an open culture cannot be underestimated. We expect that Robert Francis will make further recommendations on the duty of candour when the Mid Staffordshire Inquiry is published, and we are committed to taking whatever further action we think is needed as a result. "But we cannot wait - creating this contractual duty of candour now ensures that NHS contracts for the next financial year will champion patients" rights to basic honesty, as well as safe care." It is likely that if NHS organisations are not open with patients, their chief executives could have to apologise in writing to the patient and report the breach to the regulator, Care Quality Commission. Strict action plans to prevent the breach happening again could also be required with repeated contractual breaches leading to more stringent action. Peter Walsh, chief executive of the charity, Action against Medical Accidents or AvMA said: "This appears to be a cynical attempt by the Department of Health to sidestep overwhelming pressure from patients groups and others for a statutory duty of candour and pre-empt recommendations from the Mid Staffordshire Inquiry which are likely to recommend a statutory duty. No one should be taken in by this. We do not object to a standard clause in NHS trusts" contracts, but what the Government is saying is that it does not see a duty of candour as one of the "essential standards of quality and safety" which all health organisations need to satisfy in order to be registered with the Care Quality Commission. It clearly should be, as this would give the CQC statutory power to insist upon and enforce it. It is simply wrong to relegate such a fundamental issue to a standard clause in NHS trusts" contracts. It is also ironic that the people expected to be the main policemen of this - GPs - are not going to be covered by this so-called duty at all.