Key Points

Please take a moment to review these points, reflect on their significance and consider how they apply to your own experiences.

Tick to confirm (optional):

• Sexual harassment is unwanted conduct of a sexual nature that violates dignity or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment.
• It can be verbal, physical, visual, digital or environmental - examples include comments, touching, staring, images, messages or repeated approaches.
• The impact on the person targeted, not the speaker’s intent, determines whether behaviour is unacceptable.
• A single serious incident or a pattern of smaller behaviours can amount to harassment.
• Harassment may be directed at staff, patients, customers or visitors and can come from colleagues, managers, patients, companions, contractors or visiting professionals.
• Employers in Great Britain have a preventative duty to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment (effective 26 October 2024); use EHRC and Acas guidance when reviewing risk and policies.
• GOC Standard 15 and GOC guidance on sexual boundaries provide the regulatory context for optical practice.
• Practical immediate actions: check the person’s safety, avoid joining in or laughing, and offer support where appropriate.
• Record incidents factually (what was said/done, when, where, who was present, immediate actions) and report via the organisation’s reporting route.