Supporting Sexual Safety in the independent sector

IHPN takes the issue of sexual safety very seriously. In 2024 we held our first a “Sexual Safety” session with members to look at this issue in more detail. We considered what independent providers can do to support their staff and ensure an absolute zero tolerance approach to bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct of any kind in their facilities. As part of the session, we were joined by the organisation “Surviving in Scrubs” who spoke of the first-hand experiences of women in the health service.  

The NHS has also established a Sexual Safety in Healthcare Charter which calls on signatories to commit to a zero-tolerance approach to any unwanted, inappropriate and/or harmful sexual behaviours towards their workforce. So far almost 90% of IHPN’s Strategic Council members (our governing body), plus over half of our members have signed up to the charter, and we are striving to ensure that 100% of our members are signatories. 

IHPN has also specifically developed a “Sexual Safety” managers toolkit for members, with 6 steps for well-led organisations to consider for tackling this issue. We are establishing a “Community of Practice”, where members will be able to come together and share learning on this issue, including looking at specific (anonymised) cases, thinking about what has worked well and identifying improvement areas. Through this we hope to bring together different professional perspectives to broaden understanding of the issue and provide peer support.