Sexual safety in healthcare charter: has your Trust signed?

08 Mar 2024

In September 2023, NHS England published a sexual safety in healthcare charter following concerns raised by the Working Party on Sexual Misconduct in Surgery (WPSMS) about the level of sexual misconduct in surgery and the wider NHS. The Royal College of Surgeons of England (RCS England) was one of the very first signatories to the charter and we continue to support the WPSMS in tackling sexual misconduct.

However, six months following its launch, dozens of NHS trusts have still not signed the charter.

RCS England wrote to 49 trusts who were not signatories at the start of this week (4 March 2024), impressing upon them the need for cultural change and encouraging them to sign the charter without delay. This has become all the more urgent following NHS Staff Survey results for 2023, published on 7 March, showing nearly 4% of respondents (almost 26,000 staff), have been the target of unwanted sexual behaviour from staff/colleagues in the NHS in the 12 months prior to the survey.

The data reveals almost 9%, or more than 58,000 staff, also reported they have been the target of unwanted sexual behaviour in the NHS from patients, service users, their relatives or other members of the public in the 12 months prior to the survey. That figure doubled (18%) for medical and dental staff in training. You can read RCS England’s response here.

Is your Trust a charter signatory?

A full list of organisations that have signed the charter is available on the NHS website. Below we outline the responses to RCS England of those trusts who were not signatories as of 8 March 2024. We encourage all members to check if their NHS trust has signed the charter, and if not, to ask their employer to do so as soon as possible so we can work together to end sexual misconduct.

Trusts can sign up to the charter and find out more information on NHS England’s national domestic abuse and sexual violence work programme via england.domesticabusesexualviolence@nhs.net

Trusts who told us they have previously signed but are not currently listed as signatories: