Is your hospital trust fully prepared for the Care Act’s new criminal offence of FOMI ?

Since April 2015 care providers have been subject to the new criminal offence in respect of false or misleading information (FOMI). The Care Act 2014 put in place a new criminal offence, which applies to care providers that supply, publish or otherwise make available false or misleading information. The offence applies to the misreporting of certain classes of information that are required to comply with a statutory or other legal obligation.

The offences within the Care Act go much further than Sir Robert Francis recommended as it was recognised by the Government that this issue went to the heart of both the cause of the crisis at Mid Staffordshire and then the delay in identifying the failings sooner. The Government has accepted that criminal sanctions against organisations and individual criminal liability for the 'controlling minds' of an organisation were the solutions required to ensure that the appropriate time, attention and resources were given to this issue. The consequences of non-compliance with the regulations for trusts and senior individuals within trusts are extremely serious.

How Mills and Reeve can help?

While trusts are in the habit of reporting information, the use of information is becoming ever more important in enabling external organisations and hospitals to identify risk. On this basis, the reliability of data is essential. This was recognised in the Mid Staffordshire public inquiry and is recognised now in the FOMI offence.

We can assist you with:

• The scope and interpretation of the legislation
• Actions that trusts can take to ensure due diligence
• Advice on "caveats" where full accuracy of information cannot be confirmed