Unions should be backing duty of candour

As someone who supports the current industrial action of nurses and health care workers, I find the claim of their union leaders that their members are attempting to enhance the safety of patients as contradictory.

On the one hand union leaders seek public support for highlighting unsafe practices within healthcare and on the other hand union leaders oppose ‘An Organisational and Individual Legal Duty of Candour’ within Northern Ireland health and social care, as recommended by Justice John O’ Hara arising from the 2018 Hyponatremia Inquiry.

Mr Justice O’ Hara's recommendations were based solely on enhancing safe health practice, securing patient safety and it is truly shocking that five years after publication, his reasonable request for a legal duty of candour has not been implemented.

Much of the opposition to the legal duty of candour has come from health care unions whose opposition appears driven by protecting their members from legal scrutiny rather than protecting the general public from unsafe healthcare practices.

I would ask union leaders to explain their current contradictory position or better still, build on the undoubted public support they have for their industrial action and withdraw their opposition to Justice O’ Hara's reasonable and genuine recommendation to implement an organisational and individual legal duty of candour to enhance the safety of Northern Ireland people within health and social care.

Gerry Cullen, Dungannon, Co.Tyrone