HSSIB investigation report – Sexual safety: the implications for patient safety (31 October 2024)

Summary

This exploratory investigation by the Healthcare Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB) considered the potential of conducting a full investigation into the patient safety risks associated with sexual safety. As part of this work, HSSIB engaged with 20 different stakeholder organisations including national organisations, regulators, universities, royal colleges and professional organisations, national patient advocacy organisations, and independent activist groups.

HSSIB found there were many ongoing and new initiatives, such as the NHS sexual safety in healthcare organisational charter, that would take time to develop, embed and reach a mature state to allow evaluation. It concluded that a full HSSIB investigation would therefore offer limited value at this time.

Content

As part of this exploratory investigation, HSSIB made the following safety observations:

• Health and care organisations can improve patient safety by capturing the impacts, events and circumstances where sexual safety incidents have affected the provision of safe care. This would help organisations to understand and assess the risks posed to patient safety.
• Health and care organisations can reduce duplication of effort within sexual safety improvement work by increasing co-ordination and collaboration. This should accelerate and enhance the potential improvements across organisations.
• There is an opportunity for health and care organisations to share learning around implementing the 10 principles of NHS England’s ‘Sexual safety in healthcare – organisational charter’. This would enhance shared knowledge, understanding and mechanisms for embedding the principles.