Ranjna Sharma
Introduction
Ranjna Sharma is a dentist formerly registered with the General Dental Council (registration number 70911) who was erased from the register — struck off — in June 2025 after a Professional Conduct Committee found that between 2012 and 2016 she caused or permitted false NHS claims for sedation never provided and built falsified patient records to support them. The case also took in a 2019 police caution for fraud by abuse of position. Her fitness to practise was found impaired by reason of misconduct and caution.
The hearing ran from 16 to 25 June 2025, in public; Sharma attended, represented by counsel. Erasure was “the only appropriate outcome in this case”.
Background Information
The determination records an experienced practitioner: a Bachelor of Dental Surgery from the University of Birmingham (1995), a master’s in facial aesthetics from Ulster University (2021), where she became an honorary teaching fellow, plus practice-advisory and training roles and a special interest in sedation and facial aesthetics.
From May 2001 to December 2021 she owned and was principal of the practice at the centre of the charges, providing NHS general dentistry, sedation and orthodontics alongside private care. The Dental Professionals Hearings Service page lists her as a dentist, registration number 70911.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Adjudicated vs. alleged. The findings described here are regulatory findings made on the balance of probabilities by a GDC Professional Conduct Committee — not criminal convictions. The criminal-justice element on the record is a police caution for Fraud by Abuse of Position contrary to the Fraud Act 2006, administered by West Midlands Police in 2019 and accepted by Sharma; a caution is not a criminal conviction. She was present and represented by counsel throughout. Where a charge was not proved against her, this page says so.
The charge alleged that between April 2012 and June 2016 she caused or permitted claims in her name for sedation when none had been provided, and created records indicating sedation had been given. She admitted all heads of charge save four, resolved after a factual inquiry at which she and a GDC-instructed expert gave oral evidence.
The Committee found she began submitting false sedation claims in 2012, each worth approximately £130, for friends or family genuinely receiving NHS care at the practice — but not the sedation claimed. She provided their care for free, saying that for cultural reasons she would have found it disrespectful to charge them. Acting with her practice manager, who had unrestricted use of her login details, she created detailed false clinical notes so the claims would withstand scrutiny — signed consent forms for the fictitious sedation, blood-pressure recordings, the type and quantity of sedative supposedly given. In her witness statement she wrote: “I also added false intra-operative sedation information and often recorded [the Practice Manager] as the nurse present.”
In total the Committee found she caused or permitted 26 false claims relating to 19 patients between 2012 and 2016, worth in the region of £5,000, supported by records so convincing they initially misled even the GDC’s own expert witness. One patient, a business associate, had been asked to sign consent forms for sedation when it had not been provided to him and understood she was claiming for sedation for other friends and family; after he threatened to report the claiming, she pre-emptively admitted it to the NHS in April 2016, repaid the sum with interest and later accepted the caution.
On the contested heads, the Committee could not be satisfied she knew one claim (Claim 4) to be false — it was at least equally likely her practice manager had submitted it without her knowledge — so that knowledge allegation was not proved, though the charge still succeeded on a “cause or permit” basis because she knowingly allowed others to use her login for claims in her name. Claims 6, 7 and 17 were found proved: made deliberately, not by mistake. For the dishonesty heads the Committee found the matters misleading and dishonest — done “with the intention of obtaining renumeration to which you knew you were not entitled” and, for the records, because she “knew the record to be false”.
Public Reaction and Consequences
The Committee judged the facts proved to be misconduct, breaching the GDC’s standards on honesty, accurate records and justifying patients’ trust “to an exceptionally high degree”. The falsified sedation and dosage entries put each patient at possible risk of harm: a later clinician would have read them as showing sedation safely administered with no adverse effects.
On impairment it found dishonesty pre-meditated and sustained over roughly four years, and rejected her 2016 self-referral as evidence of insight, calling it “an entirely self-serving and strategic step” prompted by the blackmail threat. Her evidence was self-centered, it recorded: she spoke of “an abusive system”, was “aggrieved” by the proceedings, and indicated she would not report another dentist’s dishonesty to the GDC. Yet it accepted genuine remorse and developing insight, noted a decade of complaint-free work, and observed that she appeared “a hard-working, highly skilled and highly intelligent practitioner”. Impairment was found by reason of both the misconduct and the caution and, citing guidance that persistent or covered-up dishonesty is likely to result in erasure, the Committee found the scheme incompatible with remaining on the register.
Current Status
Sharma is erased from the GDC register — struck off — removing her from the register of dentists entitled to practise in the UK. On 25 June 2025 the Committee directed that the name of Ranjna Sharma (70911) be erased and made an immediate suspension order under section 30(1) of the Dentists Act 1984; the hearings service records the outcome as erasure with immediate suspension. Unless she appeals, erasure takes effect after the 28-day appeal period; if she appeals, the suspension remains in force.
Impact on Their Career/Life
The erasure ends a career spanning more than two decades of practice ownership, training roles and NHS advisory work. The reckoning came slowly: the false claiming had stopped by January 2016, the money had been repaid with interest, and the caution was accepted in 2019 — yet she worked on, including under supervised practice, until the 2025 hearing. The Committee noted she still had not told all affected patients that their records had been falsified, and that much of her remediation came only in the months before the hearing. Unless she successfully appeals, she may no longer work as a dentist in the UK.