This is the NHS’s MeToo moment – and Wes Streeting is well placed to reform it

Editorial: Figures obtained by The Independent indicate that sexual misconduct in health and social care has doubled in four years – it is an issue that requires an immediate and thorough remedy

Wes Streeting needs to set his civil servants on the task of reforming this part of the system in short order (PA)

As is all-too-well known, the National Health Service is suffering from a number of comorbidities after some years of unprecedented pressures and neglect – and most of them are quite serious.

The Covid pandemic is the most obvious contributory factor to long waiting times and patient frustrations, but the (relatively) new health and social care secretary, Wes Streeting, has made it plain that helping the NHS itself recover is at least as much a matter of reform as it is funding.

There are also crucial aspects concerning the conduct of healthcare staff that require immediate remedy, and where no material sums of money are needed to effect changes in culture and practice. One of these is an apparent rising trend in sexual abuse and misconduct, now revealed by The Independent. This, in essence, is the healthcare sector’s #MeToo moment.

Figures exclusively obtained by The Independent indicate that sexual misconduct has doubled in four years, rising to some 249 cases over the past year or so.

Of course, it may be claimed that that tally is low, given the scale of the NHS and the healthcare sector, and the numbers of patients coming into contact with it. Yet 249 cases is 249 too many – and, as common sense tells us, it is likely to be a gross underestimate of very many more incidents that go unreported and un- or under-investigated.

The examples unearthed follow a pattern depressingly familiar from revelations that have emerged in other places, such as the police, politics and the world of entertainment – and indeed the NHS and social care, not least in maternity. There is the same violation of trust by those in positions of trust; the same failures in control and regulation; and similar institutional tendencies towards denial and cover-up. Vulnerable patients, unforgivably, are especially at risk.

Such is the complex structure of the NHS, the medical professional bodies and the various disciplinary procedures that it is difficult to identify any single point of weakness – it is a type of complacent and secretive attitude that seems to pervade the whole system.

In any case, some NHS trusts, managers, the professional standards authority, individual regulators such as the General Medical Council, Health and Care Professions Council, the Nursing and Midwifery Council and the royal medical colleges have all been found wanting to a greater or lesser extent. Indeed, the confusing overlaps and web of responsibilities may have contributed to a system where perpetrators too often escape any consequences for their actions.

Busy as he is, Mr Streeting needs to set his civil servants on the task of reforming this part of the system in short order. A proper reform of complaint and disciplinary procedures, let alone cultural change, will necessarily take time (though not much money).

In the meantime, he could cut through the existing bureaucracies by creating a confidential helpline direct to members of his teams that could ensure that appropriate action is taken when complaints come to light, and ensure accountability from whichever of the bodies concerned is responsible for redress and justice.

Indeed, in the more serious cases, incidents can be taken entirely out of the NHS and referred to the police, because something much more important than a breach of professional standards is at stake.

All would agree that the NHS has to be a safe space for all in it, and for all of those who come into its care. There is no place for anyone who seeks to abuse their position, and exemplary punishment is right and fitting to help deter sexual assaults and harassment.

There must be culpable individuals currently under investigation who should be named and shamed when the process is complete, the better to encourage anyone else minded to stray. It is rightly a job for the Department of Health and Social Care itself, and for the secretary of state, to push through. There is no person better placed, as well as committed and energetic enough, to do this than Mr Streeting.