Soaring numbers of health workers are facing sanctions in sexual misconduct cases

Regulators failing to deal with issue, standards authority says

- REBECCA THOMAS, JOE MIDDLETON, TARA COBHAM

The number of sexual misconduct cases involving health and social care workers has doubled in four years, The Independent can reveal, with hundreds sanctioned including doctors, paramedics and GPs.

Sanctions for sexual misconduct accounted for one in 10 rulings against health and social care workers in 2023-24, with 249 cases in the past year. But the Professional Standards Authority, which oversees all health and care regulators, has warned many of the complaints are not being dealt with properly by watchdogs.

These include:

• A doctor who sexually harassed seven colleagues but a tribunal found their fitness to practice was not impaired

• A pharmacist who carried out a vaginal examination without clinical justification

• A paramedic who acted in a sexual manner towards a patient and a junior colleague

• A doctor who had a sexual relationship with a vulnerable patient

PSA figures show that sexual misconduct cases have increased year on year, jumping from 124 in 2020-21 to 249 in 2023-24. The authority launched 30 appeals last year against healthcare professional regulators for the way a number of these complaints have been dealt with, including nine for sexual misconduct.

Concerns over the cases included regulators failing to consider whether misconduct revealed a deep-seated problem, failure to charge sexual motivation where there was evidence of it, failure to properly investigate incidents of sexual misconduct, future risk of a person repeating the misconduct and failure to properly test the credibility of evidence.

The Royal College of Surgeons described the figures as “deeply disturbing” and said it is looking at how investigation and reporting processes can be improved.