Aasim Siddique Hashmi

Introduction

Aasim Siddique Hashmi is a UK dentist (General Dental Council registration 238749, BChD University of Leeds 2012) who was erased from the dental register by a GDC Professional Conduct Committee at the end of a hearing that ran from 10 January to May 2022, with the erasure order made on 12 May 2022 and the decision published on 13 May 2022. The committee found widespread record-keeping, consent and assessment failings across his orthodontic and implant patients — but what made the case irredeemable in the committee’s eyes was proved dishonesty on two fronts: between July 2017 and March 2018 he obtained an estimated £60,000-£80,000 directly from around 13 patients, in cash and by transfer to his personal bank account, concealed from the practice he worked for; and he practised for nearly six years on inadequate professional indemnity insurance taken out and annually renewed on the false basis that he had commenced Foundation Training, while placing implants his policy never covered.

Background Information

Hashmi qualified with a Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BChD) from the University of Leeds in 2012 and joined the GDC register on 7 January 2013. He missed the chance to take up an NHS Foundation Training (FT) post after qualifying — he had to resit his final undergraduate examinations — and instead went straight into private practice as a salaried associate, paid at a VT-equivalent salary but working exclusively as a private dentist. From April 2014 to 18 March 2018 he was an associate at a private practice (referred to in the determination as “the Practice”), providing care under private contract. From around 2016 his practice included the placement of dental implants. In January 2018 the GDC’s Case Examiners had already advised him to ensure his advertising was accurate and left no ambiguity about his training; he resigned in February 2018 and left the practice that March.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Adjudicated vs. alleged. All findings below are regulatory adjudications by a GDC Professional Conduct Committee applying the civil standard of proof — not criminal convictions. Dishonesty was found under the test in Ivey v Genting Casinos. Hashmi attended only the first two days of the hearing (for a postponement application), withdrew when it was refused, and the case proceeded in his absence from 12 January 2022; the committee noted he had indicated he would admit “the vast majority” of the allegations. Some sub-heads of charge were found not proved, and the committee expressly did not find his advertising misleading or dishonest.

The clinical findings spanned 14 patients, primarily between 2017 and March 2018. His orthodontic patients (treated with Quick Straight Teeth appliances) were subjected to treatment without comprehensive orthodontic assessments, treatment plans, recorded oral hygiene status or BPE, informed consent, or any adequate record of what treatment was provided at each appointment; interproximal reduction went unrecorded as to amount and precise teeth, and radiographs were taken and left unreported and sometimes undated. He provided orthodontics to patients who were not suitable candidates — including a patient with pre-existing root resorption at UL1-2 and UR1-2 whom he never adequately advised of the risk, and a patient with a complex malocclusion given two-arch QST treatment — removed excessive enamel from another patient’s UL2 and LR1, and commenced orthodontic treatment for three patients without first securing their periodontal health.

His implant work was similarly condemned: implants placed divergently rather than parallel; implants placed in a patient with chronic periodontal disease who was not a suitable candidate; a single implant placed where two were indicated for long-term retention of a planned bridge; remaining upper and lower teeth extracted without any recorded diagnosis of periodontal disease or rationale; and inappropriate treatment options — a partial chrome denture, then root canal therapy and crowns — offered for teeth whose status made them unsuitable. In three patient cases the committee found he acted outside the limits of his competence, and it concluded that his treatment of some patients had caused actual harm. He also failed for nearly two years (April 2018 to at least March 2020) to respond to the solicitors of one patient pursuing a potential claim over her orthodontic treatment.

The first dishonesty finding concerned money. Between about 29 July 2017 and 18 March 2018, Hashmi invited patients to deal with him via his personal email and to pay him directly — in cash which he retained, or by transfer straight into his personal bank account. The committee identified 13 patients who handed over money this way (nine in cash, four by transfer), with the total estimated by a colleague, Witness A, at between £60,000 and £80,000. He concealed the payments from the practice — which had no central record of them, so the sums showed as unpaid on patient files — and concealed from the patients that their money should have gone to the practice rather than to him. In a police interview under caution he admitted taking payments from around six or seven patients over six or seven months, claiming it was “kind of future planning”: a “ring fencing” of funds to bargain with over salary he believed he would be owed on leaving. The committee rejected that account as not credible — the payments began months before his February 2018 resignation, he was being paid regularly throughout, and he only compiled his payments schedule ahead of the police interview — and found the conduct dishonest, motivated by personal financial gain, with the majority of the payments taken while Witness A was away from the practice on maternity leave.

The second dishonesty finding concerned his insurance. On 11 February 2013, in a telephone call with indemnifier Dental Protection, Hashmi stated he had commenced Foundation Training when he had not; he then renewed annually for years on that false basis, his certificates grading him as “VT […] completed”, at a lower subscription than an FT-incomplete dentist would pay. From around 2016 he was also placing implants that his membership grade explicitly excluded — when he asked Dental Protection about an implant course in April 2017 he was quoted the higher subscription required, and did not follow it up. The committee found he knew his cover was inadequate, that his conduct was misleading and dishonest (financially motivated by avoiding the higher premiums his real practice required), and that the failure ran from 10 February 2013 to about 21 January 2019 — nearly six years. Dental Protection ultimately withdrew his indemnity and applied the withdrawal retrospectively, voiding it, leaving patients unable to seek recompense through him; one patient harmed by his proved poor care has been unable to obtain financial redress.

A third strand — advertising himself from July 2018 or earlier as an “Experienced Cosmetic Dentist” with a “Diploma in Facial Aesthetics” (a four-day botox and dermal filler course, not a dental qualification) — produced proved facts but no culpability: the committee found the statements were not shown to be misleading, and the associated allegations of misleading and dishonest advertising were not proved.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The committee’s stage-two determination, delivered on 12 May 2022, branded the payment deception a “considered, deliberate and sophisticated deception” which fellow practitioners would consider “nothing short of deplorable”, and found all the proved facts amounted to misconduct and current impairment. Mitigating factors were his admissions to the record-keeping allegations and previous good character; aggravating factors included harm (including financial harm) to patients, frustrated claims for recompense, potential financial loss to the practice, and “serious dishonesty of a premeditated, sustained, repeated and multifaceted kind” amounting to a “blatant and wilful disregard for the systems regulating the profession”. His conduct was ruled fundamentally incompatible with registration, such that no lesser sanction than erasure was appropriate. The committee noted his lack of meaningful insight: beyond his “with the benefit of hindsight” admissions, he continued to apportion blame to Witness A for his own conduct.

Current Status

Hashmi was erased from the GDC register — the decision published on 13 May 2022 — with an immediate order for suspension under section 30(1) of the Dentists Act 1984 barring him from practising before the erasure takes effect; the erasure is recorded 28 days from deemed service of the decision unless he appeals, and any appeal would not lift the immediate suspension. An existing interim order of conditions was revoked. The published sources do not record any appeal. MedicWatch’s profile of Hashmi records the erasure as his most recent published outcome, last verified against the GDC register on 8 July 2026.

Impact on Their Career/Life

Erasure ended a dental career roughly a decade old — from registration in January 2013 to the committee’s direction in May 2022 — about six years after qualification. The double dishonour is baked into the record: a dentist erased not just for basic, wide-ranging clinical and record-keeping failures across 14 patients, but for twice-proved dishonesty — secretly pocketing an estimated £60,000-£80,000 of patient money, and six years of practising without valid, adequate indemnity cover on a lie about his own training. Because the indemnity was voided retrospectively, his patients were left with no insurer to claim against; the committee found at least one patient harmed by his care has still not been compensated. With no insight or remediation shown, the committee judged he would pose an unwarranted risk of harm were he to practise again.

Sources

• MedicWatch practitioner profile, “Aasim Siddique Hashmi — Struck off the register | General Dental Council 238749” — source
• GDC Professional Conduct Committee determination, HASHMI, Aasim Siddique (238749), January-May 2022 (Dental Professionals Hearings Service, decision published 13 May 2022) — source