Hellen Wachepa
Introduction
Hellen Wachepa is an occupational therapist who was registered with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) under registration number OT81086. On 10 June 2026, a review panel of the Health and Care Professions Tribunal Service (HCPTS) found her fitness to practise remained impaired and directed that she be struck off the register, replacing a six-month suspension imposed by an earlier substantive panel. The case followed convictions for motoring and police-obstruction offences and dishonest failures to disclose charges or convictions promptly to the HCPC and an employer — compounded, in the review panel’s findings, by incomplete disclosure to a later employer and a reference submitted in a colleague’s name without approval.
Background Information
The published record identifies Wachepa only as an occupational therapist holding HCPC registration OT81086. It does not name an employer or a trust, and it does not describe her training or career; this page does not guess at any of them. The earlier substantive panel had proved all eight factual particulars against her and imposed a six-month suspension. Her MedicWatch profile records her most recent published outcome as erasure — struck off the register — decided on 10 June 2026 by the Health and Care Professions Council, while noting her registration status as not yet verified and directing readers to the official HCPC register for current details. MedicWatch aggregates regulator outcomes and states it does not editorialise the regulator’s findings.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Regulatory findings following criminal convictions. The motoring and police-obstruction convictions are matters of court record; the dishonesty findings — the failures to disclose and the reference submitted in a colleague’s name — are regulator findings made on the balance of probabilities. No custodial sentence appears in the published record.
The review followed findings of four motoring and police-obstruction convictions and dishonest failures to disclose charges or convictions promptly to the HCPC and to an employer. The earlier substantive panel proved all eight factual particulars and imposed a six-month suspension.
At the review, held six months into that suspension, the panel considered further evidence about incomplete disclosure of convictions to a later employer and a reference submitted in a colleague’s name without approval. It acknowledged evidence that Wachepa had sent her DBS certificate to the employer but found she had still not met her duty to make full disclosure. The panel found continuing impairment on both the personal and public components, with insufficient insight and remediation and a risk of repetition. It concluded that persistent dishonesty and repeated misconduct made a further suspension insufficient to protect the public or maintain confidence in the profession, and directed striking off.
Public Reaction and Consequences
The published record contains no press coverage of the review and no public statements — none from Wachepa or from any other party. The concrete consequences recorded in the determinations are the original substantive panel’s suspension, the convictions underlying the case, and the review panel’s erasure direction of 10 June 2026, which replaced the suspension entirely.
Current Status
Wachepa was struck off the HCPC register by the review panel’s decision of 10 June 2026. Her MedicWatch profile records erasure as her most recent published outcome, notes her registration status as not yet verified, and directs readers to the official HCPC register for her current position. The striking-off followed a six-month suspension that the review panel judged to have produced insufficient insight and remediation.
Impact on Their Career/Life
Erasure ended Wachepa’s registration to practise as an occupational therapist in the UK unless a future restoration application succeeds. The panel’s route to that outcome matters for how the case is understood: the original convictions alone had drawn only a six-month suspension — it was the conduct during and after the suspension, the incomplete disclosure to a new employer and the reference sent in a colleague’s name, that convinced the review panel no further suspension would be adequate. The panel also recorded the mitigating fact that she had sent her DBS certificate to the employer, while finding that this did not discharge her disclosure duty.
Beyond the determinations, the published record contains no information about her circumstances since the decision, and nothing on this page should be read as going beyond it.