Wendy Thomas
Introduction
On 12 June 2025, at the end of a four-day final hearing that opened on 9 June, a Conduct and Competence Committee panel of the Health and Care Professions Tribunal Service (HCPTS) struck radiographer Wendy Thomas off the register of the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC), where she was registered as RA68925. Thomas β a Senior Radiographer at Clatterbridge Cancer Centre NHS Foundation Trust β had twice attended work under the influence of alcohol: on 30 June 2022, when she drank during her shift and was found with two nearly-empty wine bottles in her bag, and again on 21 February 2023, when that day she also recorded that a task concerning a patient (“Patient A”) was complete when she had not done it β omitting both the journal entry confirming a second safety check and the approval of the patient’s treatment plan. Thomas did not attend the hearing; the panel found all the factual particulars proved on the evidence of five Trust witnesses and struck her off after concluding that no lesser sanction would protect the public.
Background Information
Thomas qualified as a radiographer in 2013 or 2014, and by the time of the incidents in 2022 and 2023 she had progressed to become a Senior Radiographer at Clatterbridge Cancer Centre NHS Foundation Trust, a specialist cancer centre. The evidence about her came from five fellow radiographers employed by the Trust: MF, a Radiographer Treatment Expert Practitioner who had line-managed Thomas from 2021; CK, a Band 7 Radiography Delivery Advanced Practitioner; JJ, the Radiotherapy Operation and Quality Lead from November 2022; LW, who was Quality and Operational Lead for Radiotherapy before becoming the Radiotherapy General Manager on 1 August 2022; and PM, a Band 5 Radiographer who joined the Trust on 2 December 2022. The panel later recorded that the evidence on her ability was consistent: when not adversely affected by alcohol, her performance as a radiographer was excellent.
The allegation referred by the HCPC’s Investigating Committee on 11 December 2024 was a “mixed allegation”: that her fitness to practise was impaired by misconduct, and separately by a physical and/or mental health condition set out in Schedule A of the allegation β the content of which is redacted from the published determination. Because the referral went to the Conduct and Competence Committee, the panel had no jurisdiction to decide the health ground; it decided to receive the report of a medical practitioner who had examined Thomas by video call in August 2024 only insofar as it bore on the misconduct case, mitigation and the risk of repetition. In the event, the HCPC did not invite a finding on the health particular, and the panel never formally decided it.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Civil-standard findings, not criminal convictions. Nothing in the published record points to criminal proceedings. Everything proved below was proved by a regulatory panel to the civil standard β the balance of probabilities β and the findings belong to the panel, not to a court.
The first incident was on 30 June 2022. Thomas was rostered for the late shift commencing at 10:30. At lunchtime LW saw her in ordinary clothes, carrying a uniform that was wet. She was “not looking herself” and, when spoken to, was slurring her words; she explained the wet uniform by saying she had vomited, felt unwell and thought she would vomit again. When LW and MF spoke with her in an office, MF went to find Thomas’s bag β inside it were two 250ml wine bottles, one empty and the other very nearly empty β and during the conversation Thomas admitted she had been drinking. The panel found she was under the influence whilst at work, and that it was a proper inference from the wine bottles, coupled with intoxication and vomiting occurring some time into the shift, that she had consumed alcohol during it. Particular 1 was proved in its entirety.
The second incident came eight months later, on 21 February 2023. Thomas was rostered to be patient-facing as part of a team of four radiographers on one machine. PM, her colleague that day, recalled she arrived “visibly upset” over the health of a close family member, repeatedly left the working area for no apparent reason, seemed upset and then drowsy, and was unfocused β “quite confused and couldn’t seem to remember what she had done when it came to treating the patients” β leaving PM uncomfortable to work with her. He more than once suggested she speak to MF, the duty manager, but she did not. Alerted after 15:00, MF and JJ met with Thomas and found her intoxicated; she admitted she had taken alcohol and then admitted taking it while at work, becoming tearful β JJ, putting an arm around her, could smell alcohol. Particular 2 was proved.
Once the intoxication was discovered, MF asked CK to review the work Thomas had undertaken that day. CK found only one action on the ARIA oncology system purportedly made by Thomas β she had treated four patients at lunchtime when another radiographer was unavailable, and otherwise, being upset, had limited patient contact β and it related to Patient A. Thomas had recorded that a specific task was complete, but the actions required for completion included a journal entry confirming that the second Systemic Setup Error (SSE) check had been performed, and approval of the treatment plan, and neither had been done. Her entry made it appear she had undertaken those steps when she had not. CK was able to rectify matters because Patient A had not yet been treated. Particular 3 was proved in its entirety; the allegation’s wording on the treatment plan had been amended at the hearing from “did not complete the patient care plan, as it was not treatment approved” to “did not approve their treatment plan”.
On misconduct, the panel was careful about what it was judging: not the drinking itself, still less the health condition, but “the attendance at work when intoxicated, the consumption of alcohol at work and the making of serious recording errors when intoxicated”. It found breaches of HCPC Standards 6.1, 6.2, 6.3 and 9.1 of the Standards of conduct, performance and ethics then in force β reducing risk of harm, not putting service users or colleagues at unacceptable risk, adjusting or stopping practice where health may affect performance or judgement, and justifying the public’s trust. It declined to analyse the Standards of Proficiency for Radiographers, given her excellence when unaffected by alcohol, and noted that even competent practitioners make errors: the gravity of Particular 3 was that it occurred when she had chosen to work while under the influence. The proven particulars, individually and collectively, amounted to misconduct that fellow professionals would regard as “deplorable”. On impairment, the panel found a significant risk of repetition β Thomas had repeated on 21 February 2023 behaviour identified on 30 June 2022 β exposing service users to a risk of future harm, and held that public confidence in the profession required a finding of impairment in any case of a radiographer attending work intoxicated.
Public Reaction and Consequences
The case reached the regulator through the Trust’s own internal processes, and the published record contains no wider public reaction; MedicWatch, which carries the determination, does not editorialise regulators’ findings. Thomas herself, though absent, shaped the proceedings: in an email to the HCPTS Scheduling Team on 28 April 2025 she wrote, “I will not be attending the hearing, I no longer wish to practice Radiotherapy. The toll this has taken on my [redacted] is too much and after such a long time I have put all this behind me”. The panel found that email, together with the notice of hearing sent on 8 May 2025 and a further email of 6 June 2025 containing a link to join by Microsoft Teams, amounted to a voluntary waiver of her right to attend, and directed that the hearing β listed for seven days with six witnesses arranged over the first five β proceed in her absence. When health was discussed the hearing sat in private, and the published determination is redacted accordingly.
At sanction the HCPC took a neutral stance. Its representative identified aggravating factors β a breach of trust so far as colleagues were concerned, repetition of concerns, a lack of insight, remorse and apology, an absence of remediation and potential service user harm β while, properly, pointing up mitigating factors for an absent registrant: this was Thomas’s first regulatory case, and the panel noted she had expressed a degree of remorse in her responses to the Trust and that no service user was actually harmed. The panel held the absence of harm could not mitigate the seriousness because the risk was clear. A caution order was rejected, conditions of practice were rejected as unworkable given the monitoring required, and suspension was rejected because it “would serve no positive purpose”: with her insight limited, no evidence of remediation more than two years on, and her stated wish never to return to radiotherapy, the risks at the end of any suspension period would be no less than at the start. Striking off was the only sanction that would sufficiently protect the public, and it was proportionate. An 18-month interim suspension order β the maximum β was imposed under Article 31(2) of the Health Professions Order 2001 to cover the appeal period.
Current Status
Thomas was struck off by the panel’s decision of 12 June 2025, which directs the Registrar to remove her name from the HCPC Register on the date the order came into effect. The written determination on facts, misconduct and impairment had been handed down at the end of the afternoon of the third day, 11 June 2025, with sanction submissions heard the following morning. The Interim Suspension Order falls away if no appeal is lodged once the appeal window closes, or lasts until an appeal is finally determined, subject to the 18-month maximum; the record does not state whether she has appealed. On the health allegation referred by the Investigating Committee, the panel directed no further action once the striking-off order was made. The HCPTS hearing history lists the single entry: final hearing beginning 9 June 2025, outcome “Struck off”. MedicWatch records the outcome as erasure β struck off the register β and directs readers to the official HCPC register for her current registration status.
Impact on Their Career/Life
The striking-off ended Thomas’s HCPC registration and her ability to work as a radiographer in the UK unless a future restoration application succeeds β though she had already told the regulator she no longer wished to practise radiotherapy. The panel was conscious that a sanction must not be punitive, acknowledging her clinical ability, her first-ever regulatory finding, and the seriousness of ending a career, but held that the lack of current evidence of insight or willingness to resolve matters, the risk of repetition and the absence of any information suggesting she could one day safely return made striking off the proportionate response. The published record contains nothing about her circumstances since.