Sexual Assault or Rape Cases Reported 2020-25

Reference: 25-26310

Date response sent: 21/10/2025

Details of enquiry

In the years 2020 – 2021, 2021 – 2022, 2022 – 2023, 2023 – 2024, 2024 – 2025, how many reports of rape or sexual assault were recorded in your hospitals? Please provide a breakdown by hospital and financial year
Of the incidents recorded in Q1, how many were alleged to have been carried out by NHS staff? Please provide a breakdown by hospital and financial year
Of the incidents recorded in Q2, how many were alleged to have taken place on hospital wards? Please provide a breakdown by hospital and financial year
Of the incidents recorded in Q1, how many of these allegations were referred to the police? Please provide a breakdown by hospital and financial year
Of the incidents recorded in Q4, how many of these resulted in an arrest, charge, or conviction? Please provide a breakdown by hospital and financial year

Response sent

You will note that we have masked low numbers with the symbol ‘≤5’, this indicates where numbers are equal to 5 or less than 5. The Trust follows the NHS England standard, established to not provide exact data where the numbers are smaller than 6 as this may lead to identification of individuals.

The Trust has engaged exemption from releasing exact low numbers in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) Section 40(2) (Information which constitutes the personal data of any person other than the applicant, where disclosure would not be permitted under GDPR, thereby breaching GDPR Principle (a): Lawfulness, fairness and transparency.

As this is an absolute exemption, we do not have to apply the Public Interest Test when engaging this exemption.

The Trust recognises interest in how public money is spent on services, and must balance this against disclosure of any small numbers and the years in which these instances occurred, which – whilst not directly identifying individuals, would nevertheless give rise to a disclosure of personal data, as follows:

Although the year alone is not personal data, we have also to consider whether other information that is already available, or may become available, to any member of the public, could be combined with the data requested so as to enable identification of the individual(s) concerned.
There is a high chance of recognition/identification of particular individuals/patients by fellow patients/colleagues and/or others from the low numbers.
This masking of low numbers is not a just a question of considering the means reasonably likely to be used by general public, but also the means likely to be used by a determined person with a particular reason to want to identify individuals from data in the public domain now or in the future, and/or gained from other sources.

In the years 2020 – 2021, 2021 – 2022, 2022 – 2023, 2023 – 2024, 2024 – 2025, how many reports of rape or sexual assault were recorded in your hospitals? Please provide a breakdown by hospital and financial year

2020-21 = 0

2021-22 = 0

2022-23 = <5

2023-24 = 8

2024-25 =13

Of the incidents recorded in Q1, how many were alleged to have been carried out by NHS staff? Please provide a breakdown by hospital and financial year

2020-21 = 0

2021-22 = 0

2022-23 = 0

2023-24 = <5 (not our staff but others’ NHS staff, as asked for this question)

2024-25 = 0

Of the incidents recorded in Q2, how many were alleged to have taken place on hospital wards? Please provide a breakdown by hospital and financial year

Not applicable. The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust does not have any inpatient wards

Of the incidents recorded in Q1, how many of these allegations were referred to the police? Please provide a breakdown by hospital and financial year

Nil for all years 2020-2025

Of the incidents recorded in Q4, how many of these resulted in an arrest, charge, or conviction? Please provide a breakdown by hospital and financial year

Nil for all years 2020-2025