Freedom of Information (FOI) requests were sent to NHS Trusts in England by Sexual Abuse Compensation Advice which discovered staff and patients raised sexual abuse concerns at many trusts, and in the North West Lancashire & South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust (L&SCHF) and Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (MUNFT) have the highest leves of reporting.
This article contains mentions of sexual assaults and rape, which may be triggering for some readers.
Includes a comment from NHS England at the end of the article.
Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust
The MFT operates one of the largest networks of hospitals and community services across Greater Manchester, including Manchester Royal Infirmary, Wythenshawe Hospital, North Manchester General Hospital, Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital and Saint Mary’s Hospital. A spokesperson for the trust told us that:
In recent years the trust has been encouraging patients and staff to report incidents. Safeguarding staff and putting protocols in place to limit the possibility of sexual safety incidents happening is a priority for the hospital, and where appropriate the police will be informed of the incidents.
Sexual safety incidents are not the same as sexual abuse
The data show that all incidents were recorded under the Trust’s administrative “sexual safety” category, with 46% logged in the most recent financial year. The Trust also stated that this is a broad internal safeguarding classification, encompassing a wide range of incident types.
It is important to distinguish between terminologies. ‘Sexual abuse’ ordinarily denotes conduct amounting to a criminal offence. MUNFT’s category of ‘sexual safety’ includes incidents that may affect a person’s sense of sexual wellbeing, assault, harassment, misconduct, and safeguarding concerns. Conflating the two, risks mischaracterising the scale and nature of the underlying conduct.
The table shows a total of 234 reports for the full three-year period, of which 175 were made by staff members, 43 by patients, eight by visitors, and eight by individuals categorised as “other”.
Across the full three-year period, 175 reports were made by staff members, 43 by patients, eight by visitors and eight by individuals categorised as “other”.
The MUNFT confirmed that 9 staff members were subject to disciplinary action in relation to a sexual offence during those financial years. A further breakdown was not provided, due to the small numbers involved and the associated risk of identifying individuals. Data concerning how many staff were dismissed were also withheld on the same protection grounds.
Taken together, these figures place the MUNFT alongside other large North West providers where substantial numbers of sexual safety or sexual offence-related incidents have been recorded, while also underlining the need for careful distinction between criminal allegations and broader safeguarding reports.
Other trusts have similar or even worse numbers
To understand if this is a local failure or a regional trend, we examined the other FOI requests across England, which show that Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (including Blackpool Victoria Hospital, Fleetwood Hospital and Clifton Hospital) recorded fewer than five sexual offence allegations in 2022/23, nine in 2023/24 and 42 in 2024/25, with the majority of incidents occurring in the most recent year. Across 2023/24 and 2024/25 combined, there were at least 23 allegations recorded as ‘staff on patient’.
Lancashire & South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust “L&SCHF” (including Lytham Hospital, Longridge Hospital, and various community health and mental health centres) recorded 464 sexual safety incidents between 2022/23 and 2024/25. At least 132 of those reports were made by patients.
In 2024/25 alone, the L&SCHF recorded 92 allegations made by employees and 31 made by patients. Fewer than five staff were disciplined in that year and no employees were dismissed, although earlier disciplinary data was not available.
Meanwhile, Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (including Royal Preston Hospital and Chorley and South Ribble Hospital) recorded 174 sexual safety incidents over the same three-year period. Across those three years, the Trust took disciplinary action in three cases, including one staff dismissal in 2023/24.
Elsewhere, Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust (GHCNF) recorded 77 sexual assaults over three years, including one rape – which took place in the most recent year.
A spokesperson for GHCNF said:
“We take sexual safety within our services very seriously. As such, we encourage the reporting of incidents so that full investigations can take place.
We can confirm that the incident recorded as rape has been the subject of a police investigation, which we have supported. More generally we have a full range of security and safety measures in place to minimise the possibility that offences occur, but also a full range of support for anyone affected by such incidents.”
Meanwhile, over in the North East, The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (including Royal Victoria Infirmary, Great North Children’s Hospital, and the Freeman Hospital) recorded an unnerving 99 sexual offences in the last three years – eight of the victims were patients. Four staff members of the trust were disciplined.
While Manchester withheld details on dismissals, Newcastle confirmed four staff were disciplined, and Gloucestershire publicly acknowledged a rape investigation. This inconsistency in reporting further erodes public trust.
While these six trusts, including Manchester, are among the worst offenders, concerns about sexual assault and harassment within healthcare settings are not isolated to individual NHS trusts.
A nationwide problem
National evidence shows that sexual misconduct in medicine is widespread, under-reported, and inconsistently sanctioned, particularly where strong power imbalances exist between staff and patients.
A review of Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) decisions from August 2023 to August 2024 found that out of 222 new cases, 55 involved sexual misconduct. Nine of these were deemed “not proved” or “not impaired” and excluded, leaving 46 cases where impairment was confirmed. Of these, 31 were classified as professional misconduct and 15 involved criminal convictions, where the tribunal determined sanctions only in relation to fitness to practise.
All 46 sanctioned doctors were male, with roughly equal numbers of UK-trained and international medical graduates. Most held senior positions, with 83% in roles of authority such as consultants, GPs, or senior registrars, and many occupying leadership or educational roles. General practice and surgery were the most represented specialties. The study highlighted that seniority can enable abuse by giving perpetrators control over patients’ care, colleagues’ training, and career progression.
Offences ranged from sexual touching and harassment to assault and rape, with 12 cases involving children. A third of cases involved multiple victims, and targets included patients, colleagues, and children. Concurrent misconduct such as probity breaches, racism, substance abuse, and confidentiality violations was also noted.
Sanctions reflected the seriousness of sexual misconduct, with 65% of cases resulting in erasure and 35% in suspension. However, in 24% of cases, tribunals imposed less severe sanctions than recommended by the GMC, demonstrating notable inconsistencies in the fitness-to-practise decision-making process. Factors influencing sanctions included the presence of convictions, involvement of children, evidence of remediation, and demonstration of insight or regret.
The findings underscore that sexual misconduct by doctors is a systemic issue with high stakes for patient and colleague safety. The current regulatory framework relies on subjective evidence, can be re-traumatising for victims, and does not consistently produce proportionate sanctions. Researchers call for specialist tribunal training, improved victim support, and substantial reform to ensure a robust, transparent, and safe system for handling these cases.
A call for systemic reform
“These disclosures show a pattern that can no longer be dismissed as isolated wrongdoing,” said Ellie Lamey, a CICA specialist at Sexual Abuse Compensation Advice. She notes that silence from victims often reflects fear and an imbalance of power rather than a lack of harm.
Collectively, these disclosures reveal a troubling pattern where high-profile institutional failures and regulatory inconsistencies converge to leave victims vulnerable. The distinction between ‘sexual safety’ reports and criminal abuse highlights how easily misconduct can be diluted in administrative categories, while the MPTS data confirms that seniority often shields perpetrators with disproportionately lenient sanctions. Ultimately, the evidence points not to isolated lapses but to a systemic culture where fear and power imbalances silence victims, underscoring an urgent need for independent oversight and survivor-centred justice rather than reputational protection.
An NHS spokesperson said:
Any instance of sexual violence, harassment or abuse in the NHS is totally unacceptable and it is essential that all hospitals are taking robust action to prevent it and ensure a safe environment for all patients and staff.
“To ensure a zero-tolerance approach, the NHS has issued new guidance to all hospitals to better recognise and act on incidents, rolled out anonymous reporting routes for staff, established specialist investigation training for trusts, and taken action to ensure misconduct investigation findings are shared with any future employers.
Background
- The NHS rolled out a new national sexual misconduct policy framework in 2024 to ensure all trusts and ICBs adopt a standalone sexual misconduct policy. This was audited in late 2025, and all trusts and ICBs were found to either have a policy in place already or being the process of implementing one.
- Every NHS trust in England has adopted the Sexual Safety Charter, which sets out specific standards in the identification, reporting and investigation of staff sexual misconduct cases – and it is the responsibility of all individual employers to provide a safe environment for their staff.
- In October 2024, the NHS issued new guidance to local hospitals outlining how the health service should recognise, report and act on sexual misconduct in the workplace. This included rolling out a new mechanism to enable staff to anonymously report incidents of sexual misconduct.
- In addition, NHS England wrote to all hospitals in August to ask for further action to prevent potential perpetrators, including ensuring misconduct investigation findings are shared with future employers – and again in December to ask for new actions by all organisations delivering NHS care to prevent sexual misconduct in the health service.
For those affected by sexual abuse in healthcare: if you have experienced misconduct within the NHS, expert legal support is available. You can book a free consultation or call the 24-hour helpline via Sexual Abuse Compensation Advice.
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