Doctors, nurses and midwives are to be required to be open and honest about mistakes to patients in new guidelines.
The General Medical Council (GMC) and Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) have set out draft guidance which is open for public consultation to encourage honesty about medical mistakes.
The proposals include the need to learn from "near misses" as well as incidents where a patient is harmed, as well as advice on how to apologise to patients and those close to them.
There is also a call for clinical leaders and employers to support doctors, nurses and midwives and encourage a culture of openness and honesty where staff can learn from mistakes.
Last month the GMC and NMC and six other professional UK healthcare regulators published a joint statement declaring a commitment to a duty of candour for medical staff.
The guidance follows the report into failures in Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, and the Secretary of State for Health will speak at an event on the evening of 3 November to launch it.
The consultation is open until 5 January 2015 and new joint guidance will be published in march 2015.
Niall Dickson, chief executive of the GMC, said: "Patients deserve a clear and honest explanation if something has gone wrong with their care.
"This is why, for the first time, we are collaborating on this new joint guidance. It will ensure that doctors, nurses and midwives are working to a common standard and will know exactly what their responsibilities are.
"But it will only be of any use if it makes sense in day-to-day practice and that is why we are now going to consult with patients and with doctors, nurses and midwives who deal with these issues on the clinical front line. We want to know if it is clear enough, covers everything it should and we would welcome ideas on how best to illustrate the guidance working in practice.
He continued:"We also want to send out a very clear message to employers and clinical leaders -none of this will work without an open and honest learning culture and we know from the Mid Staffordshire enquiry and from our own work with healthcare professionals that too often such a culture does not prevail.
"It remains one of the biggest challenges facing our healthcare system and a major impediment towards safe effective care."
