Exclusive: Survey reveals majority of nurses have experienced sexual harassment

The concerning results show that, of more than 2,000 nursing staff and students who took part in the poll, 60% said they had experienced sexual harassment at work, while 39% had witnessed a colleague being harassed. However, significantly, only 27% of respondents who had been sexually harassed had reported it to their employer.

"I feel like it’s so normal that I forget it’s even sexual harassment"

Student nurse

One nurse in the NHS acute sector said harassment at work was something they had “learned to accept”, while another hospital nurse said: “Alongside bullying, sexual harassment seems to be inbuilt in nursing.”

A respondent who described themselves as a young female student nurse and former healthcare assistant said they had experienced sexual harassment “countless times”. They added: “I feel like you have to brush it off and carry on with your job. I feel like it’s so normal that I forget it’s even sexual harassment.” Another student respondent said: “It’s almost seen as part of the job and no one really cares about it.”

For some nurses, the excuse that being sexually harassed was part of the nursing role had been used against them when they had tried to disclose incidents to their employer. A community nurse said: “I think [sexual harassment] needs to be viewed as a more serious offence than it currently is. The response I got from my manager and colleagues was, ‘Well, that’s just part of the job’. It isn’t. It’s offensive and abusive and makes you feel scared to go to work.”

The sexualisation of the nursing image and uniform in the media was an issue mentioned by several respondents. One hospital nurse warned: “Members of the public think nurses are fair game, comments about uniforms etc etc. This makes it hard to address, as these are our patients and visitors. But trusts need to do more and we need to change the public’s perception from [the] Carry On film image of nursing.”

The most common form of sexual harassment experienced was verbal, with 56% of all respondents encountering this. One nurse in the independent sector said they had even bought a wedding ring in an attempt to “stop men from making suggestive comments to me”.

More than a third (37%) of respondents had experienced physical harassment. Among incidents reported by nurses in the survey, which ran in May, were being groped by patients during manual handling procedures and having their bottom slapped by colleagues. A nurse in the not-for-profit sector recalled: “I wear a dress as part of my uniform and a patient’s relative sat hip to hip with me while I was assessing a patient at home, then placed a hand on my thigh. It affected me more afterwards as, at the time, I was more focused on the welfare of my actual patient.”

In addition, 29% of respondents said they had experienced visual harassment, which could include winking or leering, and just over 130 respondents (6%) had been subjected to cyber harassment via a phone or computer. One respondent said that, while they were a student, they had received emails and messages from male members of staff that had left them feeling intimidated but they had not reported the incidents out of fear it would “go against me passing my nursing placements”.

Analysis of the comments in the survey suggested being sexually harassed as a student was common, with many saying they felt unable to speak up at the time due to their status as a student. One nurse respondent urged: “More protection is needed for student nurses as they are extremely vulnerable, not always listened to by the university and don’t have the confidence or the voice to raise concerns.”

"Employers must do their utmost to protect nurses against the sex pests"

Josie Irwin

Among nurses who had been harassed, the most common perpetrator was patients – 58% said they been targeted by a patient, 26% by medical colleagues, 24% by nursing colleagues and 19% by patients’ family or friends.

There was concern among respondents about a lack of deterrent or punishment for patient harassers. One community nurse said, while sexual harassment was not tolerated from colleagues, there appeared to be a “blanket acceptance” when the perpetrator was a patient.

Others said better patient education was needed to make it clear what type of behaviour was, and was not, acceptable. “We need to frame sexual harassment as sexual harassment and not ‘flirting’ or a patient having ‘wandering hands’,” stressed a community nurse.

While incidents involving patients who lacked mental capacity or whose condition made them confused could not always be controlled, respondents said greater support and recognition from management about the frequency with which it happened and how it could affect staff would help.

For community nurses, there was also a call for “better understanding and recognition of the risks associated with lone working in strangers’ homes”. One nurse recalled a particular patient who would expose himself to her while she was kneeling to dress his leg, and this later escalated to him masturbating in front of her. “As a community nurse, it puts you in a difficult position as you now have an uncomfortable and potentially dangerous environment, but you can’t leave without completing the care,” she said.

Several community nurses told hold how the policy of going to a home in pairs when there were known issues with particular individuals did not always happen in reality due to staff shortages. There was also a sense among nurses working one on one with patients that it would be “my word against theirs” if they did attempt to report an incidence of sexual harassment and, therefore, it was “easier to put up with it” than complain.

One primary care nurse said sexual harassment was “not taken seriously” in her surgery, noting a time when she told the GP that a patient had behaved inappropriately but was subsequently still asked to return to the room alone with the patient to take their blood pressure.

In terms of gender, sexual harassment was more common among respondents who identified as female (62%) compared with those who identified as male (51%). However, the results showed that male respondents were even less likely than female respondents to report an incident to their employer, with 17% of men reporting compared with 29% of women. There was also a view among commenters that sexual harassment was seen as a “joke” when it involved male victims.

“We will continue to work with NHS organisations to help them create workplaces that are as safe as possible"

Rebecca Smith

Several nurses who identified as male reported being sexually harassed by female colleagues. One said: “I am a retired male nurse and I was sexually abused by female colleagues on an almost daily basis by both inappropriate touching, gesturing and conversation.”

Sexuality was also noted as a factor at play by some respondents, with one stating: “I’m just reporting my experiences as a gay male. I often find that makes me more approachable but sometimes it gets a little uncomfortable. I’ve had care support workers touch my bottom.”

In the wake of the killing of Sarah Everard, who was abducted from the streets of London, the survey also sought to find out how safe nurses would feel travelling to or from work alone, at night, on foot or on public transport. Shockingly, 68% of respondents said they would not feel safe. This figure rose to 73% when concentrating on female respondents, compared with 30% of male respondents. The importance of close and affordable car-parking provisions was raised by many respondents.

Overall, just 28% of respondents felt enough was being done in their workplace to protect them from sexual harassment. Josie Irwin, women’s officer at Unison, said: “Staff working in the NHS must be able to do their jobs without fear of unwanted attention, lewd remarks or being made to feel uncomfortable. Employers must do their utmost to protect nurses against the sex pests, regardless of whether the culprit is a patient or colleague. This survey shows there’s still much to do.”

Meanwhile, Rebecca Smith, managing director of NHS Employers, which is part of the NHS Confederation, said sexual harassment against nursing staff “absolutely cannot be tolerated”. “It must never be the case that those who care for us when we need it most feel they must simply ‘learn to live with’ this kind of abuse,” she added. “Employers are fully committed to making sure their staff and students are safe at work and to stamping out sexual harassment, but there is more to do to improve workplace cultures.”

She called on employers to be proactive in their approach to preventing harassment, including listening to, and acting on, nurses’ concerns. “We will continue to work with NHS organisations to help them create workplaces that are as safe as possible,” Ms Smith pledged.