We recognise that students undertaking clinical placements in the NHS may unfortunately experience harassment or sexual violence while in placement settings. This can be distressing and isolating, particularly when it occurs in a professional or hierarchical environment, where concerns about progression or assessment can make the decision to come forward to seek support more difficult.
We believe you should expect to feel safe and supported in all of your learning environments.
If you've experienced harassment or sexual violence while on placement, you're not to blame, and support is available. You do not have to manage this alone.
This page explains what support is available, what options you may wish to consider, and how the University can help. It's important to remember:
- you are not expected to manage this alone
- your concerns will be taken seriously
- you have options - seeking support will not automatically trigger formal action
What do we mean by harassment and sexual violence?
Harassment is:
Harassment is unwanted behaviour that violates someone’s dignity or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment. In law, harassment relates to a course of conduct (series of actions) involving more than one act or behaviour, as set out in the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. Under the Equality Act 2010, harassment can also be related to certain protected characteristics, such as sex, race or disability.
Read the University’s full definitions of harassment
Sexual harassment is a form of sexual violence.
Sexual violence or misconduct can include (but is not limited to):
- Unwanted sexual comments, jokes or remarks
- Sexualised behaviour or language
- Unwanted touching or physical contact
- Sexual assault or rape
- Online or digital sexual harassment, including image-based abuse
- Abuse of power or position of authority for a sexual purpose
- Stalking
Read the University's full definitions of sexual violence/ misconduct.
These behaviours are never acceptable, whether they come from:
- NHS staff
- Other students
- Patients or service users
- Anyone else you encounter while on placement
How to access support from the University
You can share what you’ve experienced and access support from the University regardless of whether you choose to take forward a report to the NHS, the University, or the police.
To tell the University about your experience, please complete a Report + Support disclosure form.
The University differentiates between a disclosure and a report; submitting a Report + Support disclosure form means that your concerns will be shared with the Safeguarding and Welfare Team, it does not automatically initiate a report. On receiving your disclosure, the Safeguarding and Welfare team will contact you to ensure that you’re able to access support, guidance and information about the reporting options available to you.
If your disclosure relates to an incident of sexual harrassment or sexual violence, then you will be asked if you would like to be supported by a Sexual Violence Support Officer (SVSO).
You can chose whether or not to name the reported party (person posing a risk), however if you’d like to access support, but are unsure whether you’d like to take forward a report, we would encourage you not to include the details of the reported party in your disclosure at this stage.
If your disclosure names another student on a professionally accredited course or a medical professional working within the NHS, then it is likely that this will need to be shared with their Academic School and/or with the relevant NHS Trust or service provider. This is to ensure that appropriate risk assessments and action can be considered in order to safeguard you and other students and/or patients. Where possible, we would always seek to discuss this with you before sharing the information and it would only be shared on a need to know basis, with as few individuals as possible.
University Sexual Violence Support Officers (SVSOs)
Sexual Violence Support Officvers (SVSOs) are members of university staff, who provide non-therapeutic, trauma-informed support. Their role is to support students who’ve experienced sexual violence or sexual harassment and to help you to make informed choices that feel right for you.
Sexual Violence Support Officers can:
- Listen to you in a supportive, non-judgemental way
- Help you to understand your options
- Explain reporting routes (without pressure to take forward a report)
- Support you to access academic adjustments if needed
- Work with you to consider your safety and wellbeing while on placement
Taking forward a report
It's important you understand the reporting options available to you, so you're able to choose the right course of action for you at this time. There is no single “right” option. Depending on your situation, your options to take forward a report may include:
1. Reporting within the NHS placement provider
NHS Trusts and placement providers have their own policies for managing concerns, including:
- dignity at work policies
- raising concerns or incident reporting procedures
As a student, if you make a report to an NHS Trust or placement provider about behaviour you have experienced while on placement, the University (via your academic school) would ordinarily be made aware of this. This information would only be shared on a need to know basis, in order to consider any ongoing risks to you and/or others and to ensure you’re able to access appropriate support from the University.
The University can help you to understand what to expect from these processes.
2. Disclosing or Reporting to the University
You can disclose your experience to the University via Report + Support so that we can help you to access wellbeing and academic support, guidance around safety planning and information about reporting options.
Academic and placement-related support
If your experience is affecting your studies or placement, the University can help explore options such as:
- temporary adjustments to placement arrangements to manage risk
- alternative placement options (where possible)
- help with Extenuating Circumstances if assessments have been affected
- leave of Absence
- safety planning
These options can be discussed with a Sexual Violence Support Officer (SVSO).
You can disclose your experience to the University to access support, even if the incident occurred on placement. This can help the University to:
- consider support and adjustments for you
- Assess the risk to you (and potentially to others) and put in place measures to mitigate these risks
- liaise appropriately with the placement provider
3. Reporting to the police
You can choose to report to the police at any point, or not at all. Support is available whether or not you choose to involve the police. If you make a report to the police, you maye also want to access support from an Independent Sexual Violence Adviser (ISVA). ISVAs sit outside of the University and provide independent advice and advocacy around all aspects of the criminal justice process, including what you can expect should you decide to report your experiences to the police and what happens next.
Further information about South Yorkshire ISVA Service.
Confidentiality and safeguarding
Our Support teams, including the Safeguarding and Welfare team and Sexual Violence Support Officers (SVSOs) will treat what you share with them with care and respect. We will always aim to seek and gain your consent before sharing information with any other team or service. However, there are some specific circumstances where we may have to share information without your consent, these include:
- If there’s good reason to believe that you or someone else may be at significant risk of harm. In most circumstances we would always seek your consent first, but if there wasn’t time to do so, or if consent was refused, we may need to proceed if there is a legal basis to do so.
- Situations where we're required to in order to meet our statutory safeguarding duties or duty of care to students, for example protection from harm.
- Circumstances where there are fitness to practise concerns relating to students registered on programmes leading to awards by relevant statutory bodies for example medicine, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, social work, clinical / educational psychology and teaching.
- Where we’re legally required to do so as part of a criminal investigation under the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act (1966).
Further information about confidentiality and information sharing.
Anonymous Disclosures
Please be aware that if you submit a disclosure anonymously, we won’t be able to contact you to offer support and it’s unlikely that we’ll be able to take any action against specific individuals. However, where possible we do use anonymous disclosures to inform environmental actions to address concerns.
Read more about how we use anonymous disclosures.
Further information and support
Guidance if you're supporting someone who's experienced harassment or sexual violence.