Petya B Somerville
Introduction
Petya B Somerville is a radiographer whose specialty is magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and who was registered with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) under registration number RA55225. On 29 July 2022, at a review hearing, a panel of the Health and Care Professions Tribunal Service (HCPTS) found that her fitness to practise remained impaired and directed that she be struck off the register when her period of suspension expired. The case concerned numerous safety, communication, patient-preparation, dignity and technical failures during her work as an MRI radiographer, for which a substantive panel had earlier found misconduct involving basic and fundamental skills and imposed a suspension order.
Background Information
The published record identifies Somerville as a radiographer whose specialty is magnetic resonance imaging, holding HCPC registration RA55225. It does not name an employer, a workplace or a place of practice, and it gives no account of her training, career or personal history; this page does not guess at any of them. The published material records the July 2022 review hearing but does not state the date of the original substantive hearing, so this page cannot cite one. Her MedicWatch profile records her most recent published outcome as erasure — struck off the register — decided on 29 July 2022 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
Adjudicated by regulator, not a criminal case. The findings below come from HCPTS panel determinations, which decide allegations on the balance of probabilities. They are regulatory findings about clinical practice and safety, not criminal convictions, and no criminal charge is recorded in the published material.
The allegation concerned numerous safety, communication, patient-preparation, dignity and technical failures by Somerville while working as an MRI radiographer. The substantive panel found misconduct involving basic and fundamental skills and imposed a suspension order — a sanction reflecting findings that went to the core of safe radiographic practice rather than to isolated lapses.
The 29 July 2022 hearing was a review of whether that impairment persisted. The review panel found that Somerville remained impaired because she had provided no evidence of developed insight or remediation, had not meaningfully engaged with the regulatory process, and presented a continuing significant risk of repeating the misconduct. It concluded that she was unwilling to resolve the concerns and directed that she be struck off when her suspension expired.
Public Reaction and Consequences
The published record contains no press coverage of the hearing and no public statements — none from Somerville, her employer or campaign groups. The documented consequences are the regulatory sanctions themselves:
- an original suspension order, imposed by the substantive panel after it found misconduct involving numerous safety, communication, patient-preparation, dignity and technical failures amounting to basic and fundamental failures of MRI practice (the published material does not give the date of that decision); and
- the erasure direction of 29 July 2022, by which the review panel — finding no evidence of developed insight or remediation, no meaningful engagement, and a continuing significant risk of repeating the misconduct — concluded she was unwilling to resolve the concerns and struck her off when the suspension expired.
The arc of the two recorded decisions is consistent rather than escalating: the suspension order had left the concerns to be addressed, and the review panel found no evidence that they had been.
Current Status
Somerville has been struck off the HCPC register under the panel’s decision of 29 July 2022, which directed that erasure take effect when her suspension expired. That decision is now several years old rather than a recent event; 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 sanction is regulatory: no criminal charge or conviction appears in the published record. The panel’s finding of continuing impairment rested on the absence of developed insight or remediation, the lack of meaningful engagement, and a continuing significant risk of repeating the misconduct.
Impact on Their Career/Life
Erasure ended Somerville’s registration to practise as a radiographer in the UK unless a future restoration application succeeds. By the time of the striking-off decision she had already been unable to practise under the suspension order imposed after the original misconduct findings. The panel’s reasoning makes any early return unlikely on its own terms: it found no evidence of developed insight or remediation and no meaningful engagement, and concluded that she was unwilling to resolve the concerns.
The published record shows no appeal and no application for restoration, and it does not state her circumstances after the decision; nothing on this page should be read as going beyond it.