DC119-Supporting Personal and Sexual Relationships Policy

Registration Number: {{org_field_registration_no}}

Supporting Personal and Sexual Relationships Policy

1. Introduction and Purpose

{{org_field_name}} recognises that personal and sexual relationships are an essential aspect of human life. These relationships contribute to emotional well-being, personal identity, and quality of life. Every individual, regardless of age, disability, or care needs, has the right to form meaningful relationships, provided they are consensual and free from harm. This policy outlines our approach to supporting service users in forming and maintaining personal and sexual relationships while safeguarding their well-being and ensuring their rights are respected.

This policy supports compliance with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014, the Care Act 2014, the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and Code of Practice, the Equality Act 2010, the Human Rights Act 1998, the Sexual Offences Act 2003, the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018. It is particularly linked to CQC Fundamental Standards including Regulation 9, Person-centred care; Regulation 10, Dignity and respect; Regulation 11, Need for consent; Regulation 12, Safe care and treatment; Regulation 13, Safeguarding service users from abuse and improper treatment; Regulation 17, Good governance; and Regulation 18, Staffing. The policy also reflects CQC’s current assessment framework, including the quality statements on safeguarding, consent to care and treatment, equity, person-centred care, dignity, privacy, learning culture and governance.

2. Scope of the Policy

This policy applies to all employees, contractors, volunteers, and service users within {{org_field_name}}. It encompasses all forms of personal and sexual relationships, including friendships, romantic partnerships, and intimate relationships. This includes individuals living independently, those residing with family members, and those receiving continuous domiciliary care.

The policy covers:

Heterosexual, same-sex, and non-binary relationships.
Relationships involving individuals with physical impairments, learning disabilities, or mental health conditions.
Friendships and familial relationships that contribute to social well-being.

As this is a domiciliary care service, this policy applies to support delivered in a person’s own home, supported living environment, family home, community setting, during care calls, during escorted activities and when staff become aware of relationship-related issues through care planning, safeguarding, communication with relatives or professionals, or direct observation. It includes face-to-face relationships, online relationships, contact through social media, dating applications, telephone or messaging services, and contact with partners, spouses, family members, friends, visitors, neighbours, unpaid carers or other people using services.

3. Principles of Supporting Relationships

Our approach to supporting personal and sexual relationships is guided by the following core principles:

Respect for Autonomy: Service users have the right to make independent decisions regarding their relationships. Staff must respect these choices, provided the individual has the capacity to consent and the relationship does not pose harm.
Privacy and Dignity: Personal and sexual matters are handled with discretion. Staff must ensure that service users can explore relationships in a safe, private environment without fear of judgment or intrusion.
Safeguarding and Well-Being: While supporting relationships, staff must remain vigilant for signs of abuse, coercion, or exploitation. Any concerns must be reported immediately in accordance with the company’s safeguarding procedures.
Non-Judgmental Approach: Staff must approach relationship matters without prejudice, respecting the diverse cultural, sexual, and personal identities of service users. Staff must receive training to overcome personal biases and maintain professionalism.
Human Rights and Equality: Staff must uphold each person’s rights to private and family life, dignity, autonomy, freedom from discrimination, and freedom from degrading treatment. Staff must not make assumptions based on age, disability, cognitive impairment, culture, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, marital status or any other protected characteristic.
Positive Risk-Taking: The service will not restrict a person’s personal or sexual relationships simply because staff, relatives or professionals disagree with the person’s choices. Any restriction must be lawful, necessary, proportionate, evidence-based, least restrictive and clearly recorded.
Sexual Safety: Staff must promote sexual safety by recognising signs of unwanted sexual behaviour, sexual exploitation, grooming, coercion, domestic abuse, harassment, controlling behaviour, online abuse, financial abuse linked to relationships, and situations where a person may be unable to give valid consent.

4. Capacity and Consent

{{org_field_name}} recognises that capacity and consent are central to supporting safe, lawful and respectful personal and sexual relationships. Staff must follow the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and must presume that a person has capacity unless it is established, through a decision-specific assessment, that they lack capacity for the particular decision at the particular time. A person must not be treated as unable to make a decision merely because they make a decision that others consider unwise.

Capacity assessments must be decision-specific, time-specific and proportionate. Different decisions may require different assessments, for example: deciding whether to have contact with a friend or partner; deciding whether to invite a person into the home; deciding whether to share personal information; deciding whether to use social media or dating applications; deciding whether to marry or enter a civil partnership; deciding whether to use contraception; deciding whether to access sexual health services; or deciding whether to engage in sexual activity.

Staff must support the person to make their own decision wherever possible. This may include using accessible information, communication aids, interpreters, advocates, visual materials, easy-read resources, additional time, a quiet environment, or support from a person chosen by the service user, where this is appropriate and does not increase risk.

For sexual activity, consent must be the person’s own valid consent. No member of staff, family member, attorney, deputy, advocate, best-interests meeting or professional can consent to sexual activity on behalf of another adult. If there is reason to believe that a person lacks capacity to consent to sexual activity, or cannot understand that the other person must be able to consent and must consent before and throughout the sexual activity, staff must not facilitate the sexual activity and must report the concern immediately through safeguarding procedures.

Where a person lacks capacity for a non-sexual relationship-related decision, any best-interests decision must be made in accordance with the Mental Capacity Act 2005, must involve the person as far as possible, must consult relevant people where appropriate, and must choose the least restrictive option. Best-interests decisions must never be used to authorise sexual activity.

All capacity assessments, consent discussions, best-interests decisions, safeguarding concerns, restrictions, referrals and agreed support plans must be clearly recorded. Records must explain the decision being considered, the information provided to the person, how the person was supported to decide, the outcome of the assessment, who was involved, the rationale for any action taken, and when the decision will be reviewed.

4.1 Consent to Sexual Relations and Sexual Safety

Sexual activity must only occur where all parties have capacity to consent, give valid consent, and continue to consent throughout the activity. Consent must be freely given and must not be obtained through force, threats, fear, pressure, coercion, deception, grooming, manipulation, intoxication, exploitation, abuse of power or undue influence. Consent can be withdrawn at any time.

Staff must treat any concern about non-consensual sexual activity, sexual exploitation, sexual assault, grooming, coercion, domestic abuse, forced marriage, honour-based abuse, modern slavery, trafficking or online sexual exploitation as a safeguarding concern. Where a crime may have been committed, the Designated Safeguarding Lead or senior manager must consider immediate protective action and referral to the local authority safeguarding team and/or police, in line with safeguarding procedures and the person’s immediate safety needs.

Staff must not ignore sexualised behaviour that causes distress, fear, intimidation, humiliation or risk to another person. Staff must also avoid unnecessarily restricting consensual adult relationships. The response must be proportionate, person-centred, lawful, risk-assessed and clearly recorded.

5. Supporting Safe Relationships

To promote safe, healthy, and fulfilling relationships, the following practices are implemented:

Education and Awareness: Service users are provided with information about healthy relationships, consent, personal boundaries, and sexual health. This education is tailored to the individual’s needs and delivered in an accessible format.

Relationship and sexuality needs must be considered as part of person-centred assessment and care planning where this is relevant to the person. Staff must ask sensitively and only where appropriate, using language the person understands. Care plans must record the person’s wishes, preferences, communication needs, cultural or religious considerations, privacy needs, risks, agreed support, people who may be involved, and circumstances where information may need to be shared for safeguarding reasons.

Access to Support Services: When necessary, service users are connected with external organisations that provide specialist advice, such as sexual health clinics, relationship counselling services, and advocacy groups.

Where the person requests support, staff may assist them to access appropriate external services such as GP services, sexual health clinics, contraception services, STI testing, counselling, advocacy, domestic abuse services, LGBTQ+ support, learning disability or autism specialist services, relationship education resources, or local authority social care support. Staff must not give specialist clinical, legal or counselling advice unless qualified to do so.

Safe Environment: Staff are responsible for ensuring that service users can engage in relationships without fear of discrimination, stigma, or harm. Any barriers to safe relationships are addressed through personalised care planning.
Monitoring and Safeguarding: While respecting privacy, staff must remain observant for signs of unhealthy relationships, such as coercion, control, or emotional abuse. Any concerns must be documented and escalated according to safeguarding protocols.

6. Supporting LGBTQ+ People, Gender Identity and Diverse Relationships

{{org_field_name}} actively supports LGBTQ+ service users, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, questioning, non-binary and gender-diverse people. Staff must respect the person’s identity, name, pronouns, relationships, privacy, dignity and choices. Staff must not disclose a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity, trans history, relationship status or personal information to relatives, friends, other professionals or staff who do not need to know, unless the person consents or disclosure is required to prevent harm or comply with the law.

Staff must challenge and report discriminatory practice, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, harassment, bullying or exclusion by staff, relatives, visitors, professionals or other people using services. Where a person wishes to have contact with a partner or spouse, including a same-sex partner or gender-diverse partner, staff must support this in the same way as any other relationship, subject only to lawful and proportionate safeguarding or risk management considerations.

Staff training must include awareness of LGBTQ+ identities, inclusive communication, confidentiality, unconscious bias, protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010, and the impact that discrimination, isolation or concealment of identity can have on well-being.

7. Managing Risks and Safeguarding

{{org_field_name}} will support people to have ordinary, safe and fulfilling personal and sexual relationships while protecting them from abuse, neglect and improper treatment. Staff must balance empowerment and protection and must not use safeguarding as a reason to impose unnecessary or blanket restrictions on a person’s private life.

Staff must be alert to relationship-related safeguarding risks including sexual abuse, domestic abuse, coercive or controlling behaviour, grooming, exploitation, harassment, stalking, forced marriage, honour-based abuse, female genital mutilation, modern slavery, trafficking, mate crime, cuckooing, financial exploitation, online abuse, image-based abuse, blackmail, discriminatory abuse, neglect, self-neglect and organisational abuse.

Any concern that a person is being abused, exploited, coerced, intimidated, groomed, controlled or placed at risk must be reported immediately to the Designated Safeguarding Lead or senior manager. Where there is immediate danger, staff must contact emergency services. The local authority safeguarding adults procedures must be followed, and referrals must be made to the local authority safeguarding team and/or police where required.

Risk assessments must be individual, evidence-based, proportionate and regularly reviewed. They must identify the specific risk, the likelihood and severity of harm, the person’s wishes and feelings, mental capacity considerations, protective factors, agreed actions, who is responsible for each action, and the date for review. Any restriction on contact, privacy, visitors or communication must be lawful, necessary, proportionate, least restrictive and authorised at the correct level.

8. Staff Responsibilities and Training

Staff play a crucial role in facilitating healthy relationships and ensuring that service users’ rights are respected. Their responsibilities include:

Respecting Choices: Staff must respect service users’ relationship choices, ensuring that they are treated with dignity and without prejudice.
Providing Information: Service users should be supported with information about sexual health, relationship rights, and safety. This includes access to contraception, STI prevention, and healthy relationship resources.
Confidentiality: Any discussions about personal or sexual relationships must be handled with strict confidentiality, unless disclosure is necessary to protect someone from harm.
Training and Development: Staff must participate in regular training sessions to stay informed about best practices in supporting relationships and understanding safeguarding procedures.
Professional Boundaries: Staff must never enter into a personal, romantic, sexual or financially exploitative relationship with a service user. Staff must not share their own intimate or sexual information, encourage dependency, use flirtatious or sexualised communication, exchange personal contact details for non-work purposes, or use social media to develop personal relationships with service users.
Reporting Boundary Concerns: Any concern about a staff member, volunteer, contractor, professional or other person abusing trust, breaching professional boundaries, grooming, exploiting or forming an inappropriate relationship with a service user must be reported immediately to the Registered Manager or Designated Safeguarding Lead. The provider will consider safeguarding referral, disciplinary action, referral to the Disclosure and Barring Service, police referral and notification to CQC where required.
Learning Disability and Autism Training: Staff must complete learning disability and autism training appropriate to their role, responsibilities and level of contact with people using the service. Training must support staff to understand communication needs, reasonable adjustments, sensory needs, capacity and consent, human rights, restrictive practice, safeguarding, and how to support people to have ordinary, inclusive and empowered lives.
Competence and Supervision: Staff must receive training, supervision and support to discuss relationship and sexuality issues professionally, sensitively and lawfully. Managers must assess staff competence and address any discriminatory, judgmental or unsafe practice.

9. Handling Sensitive Situations

Staff may encounter sensitive situations related to personal and sexual relationships. In such cases:

Disclosures of Sexual Activity: If a service user discloses intimate relationships, staff should respond supportively, ensuring that the individual feels heard and respected. Staff should provide appropriate information about safety and well-being without judgment.
Conflicts with Family or Cultural Beliefs: In cases where family members or cultural beliefs conflict with the service user’s choices, staff must prioritise the rights and autonomy of the service user. Mediation may be facilitated if necessary.
Relationship Breakdown: If a relationship ends, staff should provide emotional support and ensure the service user’s well-being is maintained during this challenging time.
Privacy in the Person’s Own Home: Staff must respect that a person’s home is their private space. Staff must knock, announce themselves, wait where appropriate, and avoid unnecessary interruption where the person is spending private time with a partner or visitor. Staff must continue to provide planned care safely, but must do so in a way that respects privacy and dignity.
Visitors and Partners: Staff must not prevent a person from seeing a partner, spouse, friend or visitor unless there is a lawful, proportionate and recorded reason, such as an immediate safeguarding concern, a court order, bail condition, police advice, tenancy restriction, or agreed care plan restriction based on assessed risk. Family disagreement alone is not sufficient reason to restrict contact with a capacitous adult.
Masturbation, Pornography and Intimate Items: Staff must respond to masturbation, pornography, sexual aids or intimate items in a calm, respectful and non-judgmental way. Staff must not shame the person. Staff must consider privacy, legality, capacity, consent, infection prevention, risk to others, distress, and whether any material may be illegal or exploitative. Concerns must be escalated through safeguarding procedures where appropriate.
Online Relationships: Where staff become aware of online relationship risks, such as scams, grooming, coercion, image-sharing, blackmail, harassment or exploitation, they must support the person to understand the risks where possible and report concerns through safeguarding procedures. Restrictions on phone, internet or social media use must not be imposed unless lawful, proportionate, risk-assessed and recorded.

10. Confidentiality, Information Sharing and Record-Keeping

Information about a person’s relationships, sexual orientation, gender identity, sexual health, sexual activity, capacity, safeguarding concerns or private life is highly sensitive and must be handled confidentially and in accordance with UK GDPR, the Data Protection Act 2018, the duty of confidentiality, safeguarding law and this organisation’s records policy.

Staff must only record information that is relevant, necessary, accurate, respectful and proportionate. Records must avoid judgmental language and must clearly separate fact, professional opinion, the person’s own words, observed risk and actions taken.

Information must not be shared with relatives, friends, partners or other professionals unless the person has consented, there is a lawful basis for sharing, or sharing is necessary to prevent harm, respond to abuse, comply with safeguarding duties, support emergency care, comply with a court order, or meet regulatory or legal requirements.

Records relating to relationship and sexuality support must be stored securely and accessible only to staff who need the information to provide safe and appropriate care. Capacity assessments, consent discussions, risk assessments, safeguarding referrals, best-interests decisions, professional advice, care plan updates and reviews must be recorded promptly.

The Registered Manager must ensure that records are available for lawful inspection or review by CQC, commissioners, safeguarding authorities or other authorised bodies where required.

11. Supporting Sexual Health

{{org_field_name}} recognises that sexual health is part of overall health and well-being. Where appropriate and with the person’s consent, staff will support the person to access sexual health information and services, including GP advice, contraception services, STI testing, sexual health clinics, pregnancy advice, menopause support, counselling, advocacy and specialist support services.

Information must be provided in a way the person can understand, including easy-read, visual, translated or communication-supported formats where needed. Staff must respect the person’s privacy and must not disclose sexual health information to family members, partners or others without consent unless there is a safeguarding, legal or serious risk reason to do so.

Staff must not provide clinical advice, diagnose conditions, recommend specific contraception, provide sex therapy, purchase sexual services, facilitate illegal activity, or act outside their role and competence. Where specialist advice is needed, staff must support the person to access appropriately qualified professionals.

12. Responding to Abuse, Exploitation or Sexual Safety Incidents

If abuse, exploitation, coercion, sexual assault, sexual harassment, grooming, domestic abuse, mate crime, online abuse or any other safeguarding concern is suspected, staff must act immediately to protect the person and any other person at risk.

Staff must:

ensure immediate safety and seek emergency help where required;
report the concern to the Designated Safeguarding Lead or senior manager without delay;
record factual details, including what was seen, heard, disclosed, by whom, when and what action was taken;
preserve potential evidence where a crime may have occurred, without contaminating or investigating beyond their role;
follow the local authority safeguarding adults procedures;
consider the person’s wishes, feelings, capacity and communication needs;
make or support referral to the local authority safeguarding team, police, domestic abuse services, sexual assault referral services, advocacy or health services where required;
consider whether a CQC notification, commissioner notification, DBS referral, disciplinary action or whistleblowing action is required.

Staff must not promise absolute confidentiality where a person or another person may be at risk of harm. Staff must explain, in a sensitive and accessible way, what information may need to be shared and why.

12.1 Notifications, Duty of Candour and External Reporting

The Registered Manager or nominated senior person must consider whether any relationship-related incident requires notification to CQC, the local authority safeguarding team, commissioners, police, the Disclosure and Barring Service, professional regulators or other relevant bodies. This may include allegations of abuse, serious injury, police involvement, events that stop or may stop the service from operating safely, or incidents that meet CQC notification thresholds.

Where a notifiable safety incident has occurred, the organisation will follow its Duty of Candour policy. The person affected, or their relevant representative where appropriate, will receive a truthful explanation, an apology, reasonable support, information about what is known, and updates on any investigation or learning, in line with legal and regulatory requirements.

13. Monitoring, Audit and Continuous Improvement

The Registered Manager is responsible for ensuring this policy is implemented, monitored and reviewed. The organisation will use governance systems to assess, monitor and improve how relationship and sexuality support is provided. This may include care plan audits, safeguarding audits, incident reviews, complaints analysis, supervision records, training compliance checks, feedback from people using the service, feedback from relatives or advocates where appropriate, and lessons learned from safeguarding enquiries or professional advice.

Audit and review activity must consider whether people’s rights, privacy, dignity, equality, consent, capacity, safety, communication needs and relationship preferences are being respected. Any themes, omissions, poor practice or training needs must lead to an action plan with named responsibilities and timescales.

This policy will be reviewed at least annually, or sooner if there are changes in legislation, CQC guidance, safeguarding procedures, case law, organisational learning, incidents, complaints or feedback from people using the service.

14. Staff Limits and Prohibited Practice

Staff must not facilitate, encourage or ignore illegal, abusive, exploitative or unsafe sexual activity. Staff must not arrange sexual services, purchase sexual items using the person’s money unless this is clearly agreed, lawful, risk-assessed and within the care plan, participate in sexual discussions for their own gratification, expose themselves or the person to sexual material unnecessarily, assist with sexual activity, or act outside their role.

Staff must seek management advice before taking any action where they are unsure whether support is lawful, safe, appropriate or within their role. Staff must record concerns and must follow safeguarding procedures where there is any indication of abuse, coercion, exploitation, lack of consent, lack of capacity or risk to others.

15. Accessible Information and Communication

Information about relationships, consent, sexual health, safeguarding and rights must be provided in a way the person can understand. This may include easy-read information, pictures, objects of reference, communication aids, British Sign Language, interpreters, translated information, advocacy, repetition, additional time, or support from people who know the person’s communication methods well.

Staff must check understanding and must not assume that a person understands information because they can repeat words or appear to agree. Where communication needs affect capacity or consent, staff must take all practicable steps to support the person before concluding that they are unable to make the decision.

16. Conclusion

{{org_field_name}} is committed to supporting people to develop and maintain personal, romantic and sexual relationships in a way that respects their rights, choices, privacy, dignity, equality and individuality. The organisation will promote positive risk-taking, lawful consent, person-centred care, sexual safety and safeguarding. Staff will support people without judgment while taking proportionate action where there are concerns about abuse, exploitation, coercion, lack of consent, lack of capacity or risk of harm.

Responsible Person: {{org_field_registered_manager_first_name}} {{org_field_registered_manager_last_name}}
Reviewed on: {{last_update_date}}
Next Review Date: {{next_review_date}}
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