The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh welcomes a new initiative from NHS England that will enable staff to anonymously report incidents of sexual misconduct as part of major plans to improve safety for staff across the NHS.
College President Prof. Rowan Parks commented:
We commend this new initiative to support those who have been a victim of, or a witness to, any kind of sexual misconduct, protecting them to report incidents anonymously. We were shocked by the research by the WPMS which revealed the large percentage of women and also men who had experienced some sort of sexual misconduct. This cannot continue.
Vice-President of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, Clare McNaught commented:
As a profession, we need to do more to ensure that we remove this totally unacceptable behaviour from our workplace. The College has led on a campaign to urge people to call out sexual misconduct and to direct them to resources available to both victims and witnesses. This work follows on from our successful 'Let's Remove It' campaign which was developed to stop bullying and undermining at work. I am happy that this important step has been taken by NHS England to protect victims and witnesses as they come forward with information about incidents and perpetrators.