Pratiksha Venkatesh Patil
Introduction
Pratiksha Venkatesh Patil is a physiotherapist registered with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) who was suspended from the register for twelve months in June 2025, after a conduct panel found that repeated failings in patient assessment, clinical reasoning, patient safety and record keeping amounted to a lack of competence rather than misconduct. The panel proved thirteen of fifteen allegation heads, found actual harm caused to a patient, and noted her complete non-engagement with the regulatory process. Her suspension was extended for a further twelve months at a review in June 2026, with the panel finding no evidence of insight or remediation. The decisions appear on MedicWatch and the official HCPTS hearings site, and she is listed among suspended practitioners on MedicWatch’s suspensions list.
Background Information
Patil trained abroad and moved to the United Kingdom to take up her physiotherapy role, a circumstance the panel accepted as mitigation. Between February 2023 and April 2024 she worked with a series of service users in the community, carrying out balance and mobility assessments including timed unsupported stand tests and Romberg testing, falls-risk assessments, walking-aid checks and treatment planning. The allegation comprised fifteen heads covering that period. The panel found particulars 1 to 5 and 8 to 15 proved, with one sub-particular proved only as to going to remove a knee brace, and found allegations 6 and 7 not proved. She did not attend the hearing, and the last contact the regulator recorded from her was in November 2023.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Lack of competence, not misconduct — but with actual harm. The panel was careful to find the failings were capability rather than deliberate wrongdoing, while still finding a patient was harmed.
The proved particulars describe a sustained pattern. In February 2023 she failed to tailor an assessment to a service user’s presenting complaint, prescribed breathing exercises for a service user with no breathing issues, and then recorded in the notes that breathing issues existed when they did not. In March 2023, carrying out a timed unsupported stand assessment and a Romberg test, she did not ensure the environment was safe or that the service user had anything to hold onto, did not follow the required steps for either test, and tapped a swaying service user on the shoulder, which the panel found unnecessary and unsafe. She failed to recognise a presentation the evidence described as a potential clinical red flag requiring further investigation.
The pattern continued into 2024: an incomplete falls-risk assessment with an unsafe environment and no adequate walking-stick check or adjustment; balance outcome measures and exercises irrelevant to a service user’s presenting complaint; inappropriate breathing exercises prescribed for a service user whose problem was balance; inaccurate and copied entries between patient records; and knee-brace handling found proved in part. The panel found the failings were repeated despite support over a sustained period, that actual harm was caused to a patient, and that she showed no insight and no remediation and did not engage with the hearing. Because the case was one of lack of competence, the panel treated it as a capability matter, while finding her fitness to practise currently impaired on both personal and public grounds.
Public Reaction and Consequences
The panel concluded that neither a caution nor a conditions order could manage the risk: conditions depend on engagement, and she had stopped engaging with the regulator entirely in late 2023, ignoring the notice of hearing and two reminder emails in mid-2025. It imposed a twelve-month suspension with an interim suspension of up to eighteen months to cover any appeal. In mitigation it credited her difficult personal circumstances, having trained abroad and relocated to the United Kingdom for the role, and her previously unblemished record. Against her it weighted the repetition despite support, the actual harm, and the absence of insight, remediation or engagement. The case is part of the public register on the HCPTS site and on MedicWatch.
Current Status
On 25 June 2025 the panel directed a twelve-month suspension order. At the review on 11 June 2026 the panel found no evidence of insight, remediation or maintenance of professional skills, recorded that she had not engaged since November 2023, found conditions unworkable and her fitness to practise still impaired, and extended the suspension for twelve months from 23 July 2026. Striking off was not available to that panel because the two-year qualifying period of substantive suspension in a lack-of-competence case had not elapsed — a point the panel noted expressly, meaning a future review could consider erasure. She remains suspended and non-engaged.
Impact on Their Career/Life
Patil’s registration has been suspended continuously since 2025, and the trajectory of the two decisions points toward erasure if she continues not to engage: the 2026 panel flagged that striking off becomes available once the statutory period elapses. A physiotherapist found lacking competence across assessments, reasoning and records, with an actual-harm finding and no engagement, is unlikely to be able to demonstrate fitness to resume practice without a sustained and documented return to the regulator. The determinations remain permanently searchable on public registers and on independent records such as MedicWatch.
Sources
- “HCPTS panel suspends Pratiksha Venkatesh Patil over clinical competence failings, MedicWatch” source
- “HCPTS extends Pratiksha Venkatesh Patil’s suspension by 12 months, MedicWatch” source
- “Pratiksha Venkatesh Patil, HCPTS hearings” source
- “Pratiksha Venkatesh Patil — review, HCPTS hearings” source
- “Suspensions, MedicWatch” source