Anoop Padmavathy Sundara Raj
Introduction
Anoop Padmavathy Sundara Raj is a radiographer who was registered with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) under registration number RA084939. On 15 August 2025, a panel of the Health and Care Professions Tribunal Service (HCPTS) — at the end of a substantive hearing that had run from 7 August — directed that he be struck off the register. The panel had found that his English fell short of what communicating safely with patients requires, that he had slept while on duty, and that he had dishonestly declared English as his first language on his HCPC application, and it found his fitness to practise impaired on both personal and public grounds.
Background Information
The published record identifies Raj as a radiographer holding HCPC registration RA084939 and records that he had qualified in India — which is what gave the first-language declaration on his application its consequence, since an applicant declaring English as a first language does not have to demonstrate proficiency through testing. The determination does not name the Trust he worked for, though it records that the Trust had provided support which, the panel found, he had failed to fully engage with. MedicWatch — an independent record service that aggregates publicly published decisions of UK healthcare regulators and does not editorialise their findings — carries his case with erasure as the most recent published outcome.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Regulatory findings, not a criminal case. The findings below come from an HCPTS panel applying the civil standard — the balance of probabilities. They are regulator findings, not criminal convictions, and no criminal proceedings form part of this case. The dishonesty in particular is the panel’s finding, and the panel itself described it as deliberate.
The case joined two strands: his day-to-day competence, and the honesty of the application that had got him onto the register in the first place. Raj was alleged to lack the English proficiency needed to communicate safely with patients, to verify their identities and to understand their questions, and to have fallen asleep while on duty. Separately, he was alleged to have dishonestly declared English as his first language on his HCPC registration application — a declaration that would spare him the burden of proving his proficiency — in order to gain registration. He admitted Particulars 1(a), 1(c) and 3.
On the evidence, the panel found a lack of competence in English-language communication, and found that the sleeping on duty amounted to misconduct. On the application it went further: the first-language declaration was deliberate dishonesty, made so that he would not have to prove proficiency he did not have. The panel found the dishonesty had deceived the HCPC and enabled him to derive a personal benefit — by realising, as the record puts it, his “dream of working in England”.
In mitigation the panel had the admissions, evidence that he had made some attempt to strengthen his English through two completed training certificates, and positive character references. Against that it weighed the potential harm to service users, his failure to fully engage with the support his Trust had provided, and his very limited insight and very limited evidence of remediation. It found a risk of repetition and patient harm and impairment on personal and public grounds, concluded that the registration dishonesty was fundamentally incompatible with registration, and struck him off.
Public Reaction and Consequences
The published record contains no press coverage of the hearing and no public statements from Raj or any other party. The concrete consequence is the striking-off direction of 15 August 2025 — erasure, the most serious sanction available to the panel — and with it the loss of the legal ability to work as a radiographer in the UK. The finding with the widest reach is not the sleeping on duty but the dishonesty: a practitioner found to have obtained his place on the register by deceiving the regulator, on findings the panel reached on the civil standard over a hearing that ran from 7 to 15 August.
Current Status
Raj was struck off the HCPC register by the panel’s decision of 15 August 2025. His MedicWatch profile records erasure as his most recent published outcome, notes his registration status as not yet verified, and directs readers to the official HCPC register for his current position — including whether the striking-off direction has taken effect and whether any appeal has been pursued, details the determination explains but the profile does not attempt to substitute for.
Impact on Their Career/Life
Striking off ended Raj’s HCPC registration and his ability to work as a radiographer in the UK unless a future restoration application succeeds. The case illustrates how regulators treat language competence as a safety matter rather than an administrative one — communication with patients is the medium of identity checks and clinical questions — and how dishonesty in obtaining registration outweighs late remediation: two completed training certificates and positive references could not offset a finding that his place on the register had been gained by deception. Beyond the determination, the published record contains no information about his circumstances since the decision.