Zoe L Heeks
Introduction
Zoe L Heeks is a chiropodist and podiatrist who was registered with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) under registration number CH26320. On 15 January 2026, a panel of the Health and Care Professions Tribunal Service (HCPTS) — sitting as the Conduct and Competence Committee at a substantive hearing that had run from 12 January — directed that she be struck off the register with immediate effect, her fitness to practise having been found impaired by misconduct anchored on a misrepresentation of a qualification that the panel’s allegation section records was amended to include dishonesty.
Background Information
The published record identifies Heeks as a chiropodist and podiatrist holding HCPC registration CH26320. The determination window does not name an employer or describe her training or career, and this page does not guess at them. MedicWatch, the independent record service that aggregates publicly published decisions of UK healthcare regulators without editorialising their findings, carries her case with erasure as the most recent published outcome, added to its index on 5 May 2026, and directs readers to the official HCPC register for her current registration status.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Regulatory findings, not a criminal case. The findings below come from an HCPTS panel applying the civil standard — the balance of probabilities. They are regulator findings, not criminal convictions, and no criminal proceedings form part of this case.
At the heart of the case was a false representation about a qualification: the panel found Heeks had claimed to hold a qualification she did not have. The allegation was amended in the course of proceedings to include dishonesty. On the evidence available, the panel noted, there had been a denial of any intention to mislead — in a call on 19 January 2023, Heeks said she had not made false representations or claimed to hold a qualification she did not have. The panel took that statement to be a denial of dishonesty, and it therefore placed her dishonesty towards the higher end of the scale.
Having found the statutory ground and misconduct established, the panel worked through the available sanctions in ascending order. Weighing the finding that the dishonesty sat at the higher end, it concluded that the least restrictive sanction that would suffice was removal from the register, and the order it issued was unambiguous: the Registrar is directed to strike the Registrant off the Register with immediate effect.
Public Reaction and Consequences
The published record contains no press coverage of the hearing and no public statements from Heeks or any other party. The concrete consequence is the striking-off direction of 15 January 2026, effective immediately — the most serious sanction the panel could impose, chosen expressly because a lesser outcome was judged insufficient for dishonesty of that severity. The practical effect was the loss of her HCPC registration and with it the legal ability to practise as a chiropodist or podiatrist in the UK.
Current Status
Heeks was struck off the HCPC register with immediate effect on 15 January 2026. Her MedicWatch profile records erasure as her most recent published outcome, notes her registration status as not yet verified, and directs readers to the official HCPC register for her current position.
Impact on Their Career/Life
Striking off with immediate effect ended Heeks’s registration and her ability to work as a chiropodist or podiatrist unless a future restoration application succeeds. The case is a study in how regulators weigh dishonesty: the panel’s own reasoning record shows it placed the dishonesty finding at the higher end of the scale before descending through the sanctions ladder, and stopped at the first sanction it considered adequate. Misrepresentation of a qualification strikes directly at the premise of informed patient consent — that the person treating you is what they say they are — and the immediate-effect order, rather than a delayed one, signalled the panel’s view that no period of transition could justify leaving her on the register. Beyond the determination, the published record contains no information about her circumstances since the decision.