Asis Kumar

Introduction

Dr Asis Kumar is a former consultant at Kingston Hospital in south-west London who has been struck off the medical register after a tribunal found he sexually harassed a female colleague over four months in 2021 — kissing her on the cheek, touching her stomach over her clothes, pulling down her face mask to pinch her cheek, and stroking her sides while hugging her, in conduct the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service called “very serious misconduct of a sexually predatory nature that persisted over four months and escalated over time.” Kumar resigned from his hospital position in February 2022 and gave up his licence to practise a year later, but the tribunal still ruled his fitness to practise was impaired and removed his name from the register after hearings in July and September 2026, citing “the ongoing level of risk to public protection.”

Background Information

Kumar worked as a consultant at Kingston Hospital, part of the NHS trust serving south-west London, during the period of the misconduct. The harassment targeted a female colleague and unfolded between May and September 2021 — the pandemic period, when the tribunal found he used the cover of Covid-era closeness to normalize physical contact, at one point telling the woman not to tell anyone he had hugged her “because of Covid.” After the conduct ended his hospital career, Kumar attempted a controlled exit: he resigned in February 2022 and, a year later, gave up his licence voluntarily. That self-removal did not end the regulatory process, because the GMC pursued the case to a tribunal to determine not whether he could practise — he had already surrendered the ability — but whether his conduct had made him unfit to be a doctor at all, a finding that carries permanent public consequences.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Struck off by the medical tribunal. The MPTS found Kumar’s four-month pattern of sexual harassment of a colleague amounted to sexually predatory misconduct, ruled his fitness to practise impaired, and struck him from the medical register.

The tribunal found Kumar kissed the woman on the cheek, touched her stomach over her clothes and stroked her sides while hugging her across incidents from May to September 2021. On her last day at work, September 8, he pulled down her face mask, pinched her cheek, placed his arm around her shoulders, pulled her towards him, and said words to the effect of “you smell really lovely today, I love your smell.” Later that same day, he was found to have told her to put her chair next to his after asking her into his office, kissed her on the cheek, asked her to hug him, stroked her sides during the hug, and told her not to tell anyone about it because of Covid. He was also found to have made inappropriate comments, telling her “I will miss you so much” after she handed in her notice, along with words to the effect of “I love your smell” and “no, just you and me” when he invited her for dinner.

The MPTS heard the case across hearings in July and September 2026 and found Kumar’s actions amounted to “very serious misconduct of a sexually predatory nature that persisted over four months and escalated over time.” The tribunal agreed his fitness to practise was impaired by that misconduct. In deciding on erasure rather than a lesser sanction, the panel cited “the ongoing level of risk to public protection” — the regulator’s judgment that a doctor who treated a colleague this way could not be trusted with patients.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The striking-off, reported by MyLondon on November 4, 2026, closed a regulatory arc that began with the 2021 conduct and ran through a resignation, a voluntary surrender of his licence, and finally the tribunal’s determination that he should never hold registration again. The sequence matters: Kumar’s resignation in February 2022 ended his employment at Kingston Hospital, and giving up his licence in 2023 ended his ability to practise — but neither step produced the public finding of impairment. That only came when the tribunal ruled, four years after the conduct, that a doctor who harasses a colleague over four months in an escalating pattern is unfit for the register, however voluntarily he may have stepped back from it.

Current Status

Kumar is struck off the medical register by order of the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service. He has not held a hospital post since resigning from Kingston Hospital in February 2022 and has not held a licence to practise since giving it up in 2023. The tribunal’s findings of fact — the kissing, the stomach touching, the mask pulling, the hugs, the comments, and the instruction to keep the hug secret — are now the public record attached to his name, and erasure means he cannot apply to practise medicine in the UK without successfully appealing the outcome.

Impact on Their Career/Life

Kumar’s career as a consultant physician is over in every sense that matters: no post since 2022, no licence since 2023, and now no path back onto the register after the tribunal’s impairment finding. The case shows why doctors cannot simply walk away from misconduct findings — the tribunal process exists to protect the public from the next employer or the next registration, and it ran to its conclusion despite his resignation and voluntary erasure request. For the colleague whose account carried the case, the tribunal’s published findings — including the detail that he told her to keep the Covid-era hug secret — stand as institutional confirmation of what she reported, four years after the conduct.

Sources

• MyLondon, “South London doctor struck off for sexually harassing ‘scared, embarassed’ female colleague.” source