Roshan Karunasekara

Introduction

Roshan Karunasekara is a dentist, GDC registration number 172165, who has been erased from the register of the General Dental Council (GDC), the UK regulator for dental professionals. A Professional Conduct Committee (PCC) of the Dental Professionals Hearings Service, which hears GDC fitness-to-practise cases, sat from 09:30 on 5 January 2026 until 16 January 2026. On 8 January 2026 the committee made an order to erase him from the dental register and ordered that his registration be suspended immediately. The hearings service also notes he “is now subject to 2 separate sanctions under separate cases”. Unusually, no determination was published: the charges, findings and reasons are not public.

Background Information

The fuller public picture of Karunasekara’s career comes from earlier records, not the 2026 case. A First-tier Tribunal decision ([2020] 4096.PHL) recounts a degree in Bio-Medical Material Science at the University of Birmingham in 2001, dentistry studies in Prague from 2002, a return to the UK in late 2008 and automatic inclusion on the GDC register in February 2009. Between 2009 and 2014 he worked in eight practices for about three years in total, none lasting significantly more than six months; in three of them — Suffolk, Leigh and St Helens — he was dismissed “as a result of concerns about his clinical practice and/or behaviour”. His own evidence was that he last worked in dental practice in 2014.

Regulatory action followed. In January 2015 an NHS Performers List Decision Panel attached conditions to his performers-list inclusion, and in July 2016 the GDC’s Professional Conduct Committee imposed conditions after finding his fitness to practise impaired by “serious and significant departures from fundamental tenets of the profession, clinical care far below the required standard in a number of cases and potential and actual harm to patients”. NHS England conditions mirroring the GDC’s lapsed in April 2019; the tribunal also noted GDC conditions renewed on 10 February 2021.

He has history with the GDC as an institution, too. In February 2015 he gave written evidence to a UK Parliament inquiry into the GDC’s conduct, opening “I am a dentist who has worked within the NHS for the last 5 years”, criticising its fitness-to-practise casework and fee rises, and concluding that its system was “grossly unfair, biased and heavily weighted against the practitioner being investigated”. In 2020 NHS England removed him from the performers list; he appealed, representing himself, and on 31 March 2021 the First-tier Tribunal allowed the appeal on what it called a very finely balanced basis, giving him “one final opportunity” — 12 months to obtain a clinical post and commence clinical remediation. It did not disturb the GDC findings, which he had accepted.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Adjudicated vs. alleged. What is public here is a sanction, not a story. The erasure is a regulatory decision taken by a GDC Professional Conduct Committee on the civil standard — the balance of probabilities. It is not a criminal conviction, and no criminal proceedings are recorded. No charges, findings or reasons were published, and the details of the second sanction are likewise not public.

That caveat is central. The hearings service’s page records the profession, registration number, hearing dates and outcome — but its Charge and Determination fields are empty, and no determination document is attached. MedicWatch states that “The official DPHS page links to the full determination PDF for the committee’s reasons”, yet the hearing page as published carries no such document. What was alleged against Karunasekara, what the committee found proved, and why it concluded erasure was the proportionate sanction therefore cannot be reported from the public record.

What is public is the outcome: “On 8 January 2026, the Professional Conduct Committee made an order to erase Mr Karunasekara from the register and ordered that their registration be suspended immediately.” The outcome is logged as “Erased and Immediate suspension”. MedicWatch, added on 5 May 2026, heads its profile “Erasure (struck off the register)” and dates the decision 16 January 2026. It repeats the note that he “is now subject to 2 separate sanctions under separate cases”: two separate regulatory proceedings have each ended in a sanction; only the January 2026 erasure is documented publicly.

Public Reaction and Consequences

Neither source records any press coverage or public reaction. MedicWatch, which aggregates published regulator decisions and states that it “does not editorialise the regulator’s findings”, added him to its erasure record five months after the decision. The consequence is professional and immediate: erasure removes a practitioner from the register, and it is registration that permits lawful practice, so the order ends his ability to work as a dentist in the UK.

Current Status

Karunasekara is erased from the GDC register, his registration suspended with immediate effect from 8 January 2026 — the suspension applies at once, covering the period until the erasure takes final effect, including any appeal. Erasure is the most serious sanction available to the committee: otherwise indefinite, with restoration possible only after a minimum of five years. No appeal or restoration application appears in the sources; MedicWatch directs readers to the official GDC register for current status. The second, separate sanction noted by the hearings service remains undocumented publicly — its nature, date and subject matter are unknown.

Impact on Their Career/Life

The erasure closes a career the public record shows was long in retreat. Karunasekara last worked in dental practice in 2014 on his own evidence, spent 2015 to 2019 under performers-list conditions and from July 2016 under GDC conditions, and told the 2021 tribunal he kept his knowledge current through CPD. The tribunal’s March 2021 decision preserved his place on the NHS performers list only as a time-limited “final opportunity” to remediate. Five years later a Professional Conduct Committee erased him altogether — and the determination that would explain why was never published. His 2015 parliamentary evidence, written by a critic of the GDC’s fitness-to-practise machinery, now stands in the public record beside a decision in which that machinery removed him from the profession.

Sources

MedicWatch, “Roshan Karunasekara — Struck off the register · 16 January 2026”, decision dated 16 January 2026, added 5 May 2026. source
Dental Professionals Hearings Service, “KARUNASEKARA, Roshan — Professional Conduct Committee outcome”, hearing 5–16 January 2026. source
UK Parliament, “Written evidence submitted by Roshan Karunasekara (GDC0089)”, 23 February 2015. source
First-tier Tribunal (Health, Education and Social Care), “Mr Roshan Karunasekara -v- NHS England”, [2020] 4096.PHL, 31 March 2021. source