When a healthcare professional commits an error that results in an adverse patient outcome, it is increasingly considered appropriate that an apology should be made to the harmed person.12 Such an apology benefits both the health professional and the patient, and serves to address the considerable emotional burden that accompanies this wrenching aspect of practice (see page 249).1 The process of apology invariably calls for candid self-reflection and, in the best of circumstances, leads to better and safer care. It emphasises that healthcare is at its heart a social process that contains predictable human emotions that contribute to its value but can also serve to facilitate its improvement.

WHERE DOES APOLOGY FIT IN HEALTHCARE SYSTEMS?

What, then, is appropriate when a system fails a patient? Is an apology due? To whom should it be addressed? Surely most would agree an apology is due the patient, particularly when the error is due to an identifiable mistake, such as a “Never Event,” a term that has been used to identify the most egregious and preventable errors. …