Nursing staff were one of the groups more likely to be victim of sexual harassment (Picture: Getty Images)
The first survey of its kind has revealed NHS staff were sexually harassed more than 80,000 times last year.
The NHS staff survey for England asked for the first time whether workers had been the victim of unwanted sexual behaviour from patients, their families, members of the public or even other staff.
More than 58,000 staff said they’d been sexually harassed by a patient, their relatives, or by other members of the public, while almost 26,000 said they’d received unwanted sexual behaviour from another member of staff.
The survey, which was filled in by 675,140 of the NHS’s 1.4 million staff, is one of the largest of its kind in the world.
It found victims of sexual harassment were more likely to be ambulance staff, nursing staff or healthcare assistants.
Professor Vivien Lees, vice president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, said gathering data on sexual harassment ‘is an important step as it gives us a better picture of the scale of the problem’.
While bullying and abuse has gone down, discrimination has gone up (Picture: Getty Images)
She added: ‘There is absolutely no place in healthcare for these abhorrent behaviours.
‘It is essential that staff members feel empowered to report instances of misconduct without fear of reprisal or negative impact on their career progression.
‘They also need to feel confident that reports will be believed. As an important first step, we have written to NHS Trusts that haven’t yet signed the NHS sexual safety in healthcare charter, encouraging them to do so as soon as possible.’
NHS England launched its sexual safety charter in September, which commits to enforcing a zero-tolerance approach to any unwanted sexual behaviours in the workplace.
The survey also found that there was a fall in people experiencing bullying, harassment, and abuse, and the number of people saying they had been bullied by a manager went down – but there was an increase in staff saying they had been discriminated against.
25.78% of staff reported at least one incident of bullying, harassment and abuse from patients, their relatives or other members of the public, down from 27.67% in 2022.
The number of staff reporting bullying from their managers fell from 11.10% to 10.17%, with the proportion reporting incidents involving other colleagues down from 18.72% to 18.09%.
More Trending
However, 8.48% reported discrimination involving patients, their relatives or the public, up from 8.29% last year.
And 9.07% said they experienced discrimination from their manager, team leader or colleagues, up from 9.0% in 2022.
Sarah Woolnough, chief executive at The King’s Fund, said: ‘For all the heated debate about equality and diversity initiatives in the NHS, the results of this survey speak for themselves.
‘There is a worsening trend of staff experiencing discrimination at the hands of colleagues and the public.
‘Black, Asian and ethnic minority staff consistently report higher rates of discrimination than their white colleagues.’
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.