Workplace sexual harassment protections: practical considerations for healthcare employers

Employers across the healthcare sector must get to grips the with new legal duty to prevent sexual harassment.

The Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 came into force on 26 October 2024, introducing a new duty on employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of workers in the course of their employment.

The new duty is limited to preventing sexual harassment. Harassment based on other protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010 is not covered by the new requirements.

Employers are required to demonstrate they take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment. This is a proactive obligation to minimise any risk of an occurrence of harassment. It applies to both reacting to incidents of alleged sexual harassment and taking action to mitigate it occurring in the first place.

The requirements extend beyond harassment of colleagues and encompasses third parties. For healthcare employers this will include service users, their family and friends and other individuals they come into contact with during their work, such as other stakeholders and contractors. Depending on whether your staff are based at your premises or travelling to service user properties, the potential risks will differ.

The practical steps employers can take to demonstrate compliance include:

1. Setting an anti-harassment culture

Healthcare employers should set the tone for the organisational approach to zero-tolerance of sexual harassment by creating an open culture of education and identification of unacceptable conduct. This must be coupled with clear channels for reporting concerns or incidents.

Start by setting out what is meant by sexual harassment: “unwanted conduct of a sexual nature which has the purpose or effect of either violating an individual’s dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment” (defined in the Equality Act 2010). Then build on this understanding as you develop your organisation’s culture to workplace safety by adhering to the below steps.

2. Implementing an anti-harassment policy

Codifying the behavioural standards in a clear anti-harassment policy is a key foundational step under this duty. Set out examples of what may constitute sexual harassment in your particular workplace. Ensuring the details dovetail into other policies and procedures and all relevant documents are kept up to date and accessible to all employees is of central importance.

3. Training for all workers

Training is the opportunity to educate your employees in greater depth on your policy. Adapt the training to focus on different roles to make sure everyone understands the part they play in assessing, reporting and dealing with incidents, complaints and any “near misses”.

4. Assess risks

Carry out and maintain risk assessments to identify when, where and how incidents of sexual harassment may occur. This enables those perceived risks to be evaluated and mitigated.

5. Encourage reporting

A measure of an effective policy is if it works in practice. Encourage reporting of incidents or evasive action. This is where your policy and training will highlight your anti-harassment culture has permeated into the organisation successfully.

6. Record keeping

Maintaining and monitoring records enables themes to be identified and further action taken. Make sure records are regularly and thoroughly reviewed, and steps taken to update polices and training. Alongside this, workplace protocols should be updated to address any areas of exposure in working practices.

Failing to adhere to the new obligation will exposure healthcare employers to an increased risk of claims. With the announcements in the Employment Rights Bill showing an intention to extend the duty to cover all reasonable steps, employers will be wise to put measures in place to protect their employees from harassment and themselves from claims for failures to adhere to the requirements.