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Units should
carry out sex abuse audits, psychiatrists urge
August
30, 2007
by Chris George
Psychiatric
units should carry out regular audits of sexual behaviour, complaints
and allegations of harassment or abuse psychiatrists are urging.
A Royal College of Psychiatrists' guidance document on how to prevent
sexual incidents either not being reported or hushed up follows
a national report last year which documented 122 sexual incidents,
including consensual sex, on psychiatric wards from November 2003
to September 2005.
The college's guidance states all mental health units should have
policies on acceptable sexual behaviour, harassment and abuse.
The
college said it was “very likely” that sexual incidents
were under reported.
In
2005 the Kerr Haslam inquiry reported on the cases of two consultant
psychiatrists who indecently assaulted patients in their care. The
abuse was left unreported for years.
A
writer for Asylum mental health magazine has accused colleagues
of the two psychiatrists of failing to act on reports that abuse
had occured..
Read for
yourself:
Royal College of Psychiatrists's
guidance on sexual boundaries (pdf)
Department of Health's Kerr-Haslam inquiry
Asylum article
on the Kerr Haslam inquiry
The National
Patient Safety Agency's "With safety in mind: mental health
services and patient safety" report (pdf)
See also:
Nov
10, 2006: "Most alleged rapes of psychiatric patients almost
certainly never happened", says Louis Appleby - reputation
of mental health services were "unfairly damaged" by the
allegations, he adds
July 21, 2006:
Alleged rapes of NHS psychiatric patients “truly shocking”
- outrage as report claims 11 of 19 alleged rapes were by staff.
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