Patient Safety (Notifiable Incidents and Open Disclosure) Act 2023

PART 2

Open Disclosure of Notifiable Incident

Chapter 1

General

Obligation to make an open disclosure of notifiable incident

5. (1) Where a health services provider is satisfied that a notifiable incident has occurred in the course of the provision by it of a health service to a patient, (whether the notifiable incident occurred when that provider was providing that service or another health services provider was providing a health service to that patient) the health services provider shall, subject to sections 19 and 20 , hold a notifiable incident disclosure meeting in order to make the open disclosure of that notifiable incident to the patient or relevant person (or both of them) as specified in section 7 .

(2) For the purposes of subsection (1), where a health services provider is satisfied that a notifiable incident has occurred but—

(a) none, or not all, of the likely consequences of the notifiable incident have presented or developed, or

(b) not all of the information relating to the incident, including information relating to the cause of the incident, is available,

the health services provider shall make the open disclosure of the notifiable incident under subsection (1) notwithstanding the absence of some or all of those consequences or that information.

(3) For the purposes of subsection (1), a health services provider may be satisfied that a notifiable incident has occurred as referred to in that subsection whether the provider has received information in respect of that notifiable incident pursuant to section 6 or otherwise.