The guidance from regulation watchdog the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence (CHRE) is the latest move following a landmark report into scandals in North Yorkshire involving two psychiatrists who sexually abused patients.

Campaigners have welcomed the measures which also give health workers a duty to report colleagues who they believe are involved in inappropriate relationships with patients.

Advice is also given to health workers about avoiding sexual behaviour and dealing with situations when patients behave inappropriately.

Staff will also be advised to take professional advice if they embark on relationships with former patients under the guidelines which are expected to be adopted by all UK health regulators.

Kathy Haq, who leads a support group for patients of the two North Yorkshire doctors William Kerr and Michael Haslam and is also a nurse, said: "This is the final part of what we wanted to see when we set out in 2000.

"We wanted an inquiry, the truth to be told and action to make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else. Not one more person should suffer what we did."

Inquiries into Kerr, who died in 2006, and Haslam, 73, who was jailed for abusing three patients, uncovered evidence they had assaulted vulnerable women patients over a number of years despite concerns of colleagues which were never acted upon,while others turned a blind eye. Jonathan Coe, chief executive of the support group Witness, said: "These new guidelines help to raise awareness of the need for safe boundaries between professionals and the public.

"They stand as a tribute to people who have been damaged by unsafe health staff and will help to prevent abuses happening in the future. If they are implemented, all health workers will need to be trained and made aware of maintaining boundaries with patients and that hasn't happened before.

"If it had, it wouldn't have stopped Kerr and Haslam but it certainly would have affected how their colleagues responded. There is a real lack of understanding of the rights and responsibilities of fellow professionals towards others."

The new guidance was commissioned by the Department of Health in response to a series of sex scandals involving doctors.

CHRE chief executive Harry Cayton said: "A healthcare professional who displays any form of sexualised behaviour towards a patient breaches that trust, acts unprofessionally, and may, sometimes, be committing a criminal act.

"We hope that this common- sense guidance will bring clarity to a difficult area, helping those who work in regulation and healthcare to prevent sexual boundary breaches by healthcare professionals."

Nursing and Midwifery Council chief executive Sarah Thewlis said: "Patients rightly place their trust in healthcare professionals and it is vitally important that such a position of trust is not abused."

The General Medical Council also welcomed the guidance. It has already drawn on recommendations from the Kerr and Haslam inquiry to warn doctors not to blur boundaries in dealing with patients and to report colleagues they suspect of abuse.