The number of sexual misconduct cases involving healthcare 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:
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.
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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.
Tim Mitchell, president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, said: “There should be absolutely no place in healthcare for those perpetrating sexual harassment or assault. It is deeply disturbing that hundreds of medical professionals are committing sexual misconduct. It is difficult to tell if this is due to an increase in these abhorrent behaviours, or if more healthcare staff feel able to come forward and report incidents of sexual misconduct.
“We need to support victims and bystanders to feel safe and confident in reporting misconduct. In addition to publishing a new code of conduct that makes crystal clear that sexual misconduct has no place in our profession, the Royal College of Surgeons of England is looking at how reporting and investigation processes can be improved. It is also vital that regulators take tough action on perpetrators.”
And Dr Rebecca Cox, co-founder of the Surviving in Scrubs campaign group, told The Independent: “It’s very concerning we are seeing larger numbers of sexual misconduct cases and my fear is that these cases are still underreported.”
Dr Cox, who helped sparked a major #MeToo movement in medicine, added that the outcomes of some disciplinary tribunals “do not seem adequate” and that justice needs to be seen to be done for the sake of victims.
In a letter to the PSA this week, the Doctors’ Association UK (DAUK), which represents doctors, challenged the decision by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service to only give surgeon James Gilbert an eight-month suspension after he was found to have sexually harassed colleagues, made racist comments and abused his senior position.
The DAUK has called for the surgeon to be erased from the medical register for his “abhorrent” behaviour and it is the first time the organisation has claimed a decision by the MPTS was insufficient to protect the public.
The damning statistics come after a series of reports from The Independent revealing failures by professional regulators such as the General Medical Council or Nursing and Midwifery Council to act on allegations of sexual assault.
In a warning published last month, the PSA suggested some regulators were failing to properly act on cases where health workers have sexually assaulted a colleague.
It said: “We see failures to give adequate reasoning as to why, despite the seriousness of the conduct, the public interest does not require a finding of impairment… Failure to give adequate reasons as to the sufficiency of sanction, (especially where the seriousness of the conduct found proved indicates that a more severe sanction should be imposed) and/or properly consider and refer to the relevant guidance.”
The PSA pointed to a recent case it has taken out against the General Medical Council and the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Services (MPTS), in which a doctor sexually harassed seven colleagues. The PSA said the MPTS had “powerful evidence about the type of working environment that his conduct had created, but was persuaded by remediation evidence”.
