William Smerdon
Introduction
Dr William Smerdon is a doctor who was registered with the General Medical Council under number 6167906. On 21 August 2026, at the conclusion of a Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) substantive hearing that had started on 20 October 2025, the tribunal determined that his name be erased from the medical register — the sanction commonly described as being struck off. The decision followed findings of sexual misconduct involving two vulnerable patients: a sexual relationship with one patient, and non-consensual hugging, kissing and touching of another amounting to sexual harassment. The tribunal imposed an immediate order of suspension, having found limited insight and a continuing risk of repetition.
Background Information
The published determination records little of Smerdon’s personal or professional history beyond his role as a doctor registered with the GMC. The allegations spanned two separate periods — 2012 to 2013 and 2019 — and in both cases concerned patients the tribunal found to be vulnerable. Beyond what was needed to decide the charges, the determination does not set out details of his specialty, training or employment history, and nothing is added to it here. The tribunal did note, in mitigation, that his clinical competence was unchallenged — a factor to which it gave limited weight given the seriousness of its findings.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Allegations vs. findings. The findings are regulatory findings by MPTS tribunal on the civil standard (the balance of probabilities). No criminal conviction is recorded in the determination.
The tribunal considered allegations of sexually motivated conduct towards two vulnerable patients, in 2012 to 2013 and in 2019. In the first case, it found proved that Smerdon had had a sexual relationship with a patient known to be vulnerable. In the second, it found that he had engaged in non-consensual hugging, kissing and touching of another patient — conduct amounting to sexual harassment.
Several allegations were not proved, and they stand alongside the proved findings on the record. Controlling or manipulative behaviour towards the first patient was not proved. Also not proved were the allegations that he offered antipsychotic medication without a prescription, that he restricted the first patient’s ability to leave, and certain alleged touching of the second patient.
On the findings it did make, the tribunal determined that Smerdon’s fitness to practise was impaired. It found limited insight and incomplete remediation, and concluded that there was a continuing risk of repetition.
Public Reaction and Consequences
The sanction was decided at the conclusion of the hearing on 21 August 2026, a substantive hearing that had started on 20 October 2025. The tribunal considered suspension but held that it would be insufficient to protect the public and to uphold public confidence in the profession and proper professional standards. It instead directed erasure from the medical register and imposed an immediate order of suspension, so that Smerdon ceased to be able to practise while the usual appeal period ran.
At the sanction stage the tribunal identified the features requiring more serious action: abuse of his professional position, the vulnerability of the patients, and the sexual nature of the misconduct. The mitigating factors it accepted — engagement with the regulatory process, professional-boundaries training, unchallenged clinical competence, relevant personal circumstances, the impact of the proceedings and publicity, and the passage of time — were given limited weight because of the seriousness of the findings. The determination records the regulator’s findings rather than press coverage or public commentary, and no public statements by Smerdon are recorded in it.
Current Status
As determined on 21 August 2026, William Smerdon is erased from the medical register and is struck off, with an immediate order of suspension in force. Erasure removes a practitioner from the register so that they are no longer permitted to practise the profession in the UK; it can be reviewed after a minimum of five years but is otherwise indefinite. Unless a review were to change the outcome, Smerdon cannot work as a doctor in the United Kingdom. His current registration status can be checked on the official GMC register.
Impact on Their Career/Life
The erasure ends Smerdon’s ability to practise medicine in the UK, closing a sequence that ran from conduct found proved in 2012 to 2013 and 2019, through a substantive hearing that opened in October 2025, to removal from the register in August 2026. The tribunal’s route to that outcome turned on what it found missing: with insight limited and remediation incomplete, it identified a continuing risk of repetition that the mitigating factors advanced on his behalf — completed professional-boundaries training, engagement with the regulatory process and an unchallenged clinical record — could not offset. Its conclusion that suspension would be insufficient to protect the public and uphold confidence in the profession signals that it considered the risk could not be managed by anything short of removal. The aggravating features it identified — abuse of a professional position and the vulnerability of the patients — mark the findings as among the most serious a medical tribunal can make, and erasure is the sanction that reflects them.
Sources
- MedicWatch, “MPTS orders Dr William Smerdon’s erasure after sexual misconduct findings”, 21 August 2026. source