Can a struck-off practitioner practise again?

The minimum waiting period

Doctors, nurses, midwives, and dentists who have been erased must wait a minimum of five years from the date of erasure before they can apply for restoration. The waiting period is set in the regulators' rules and cannot be shortened. If a restoration application is refused, a further period must elapse before another application can be made.

What a restoration hearing considers

A restoration hearing is a fresh inquiry into the applicant's fitness to practise. The original misconduct is not re-litigated — that question was settled at the original hearing — but the applicant must show that they have changed in the intervening years.

Tribunals look for evidence of genuine insight (does the applicant understand why what they did was wrong?), remediation (have they done something to address the underlying issue, such as additional training, therapy, or community work?), and current fitness to practise. They also consider the public interest, including whether restoration would undermine confidence in the profession.

How often restoration succeeds

Restoration is uncommon but not vanishingly rare. The strongest applications tend to come from practitioners whose erasure was for a single serious incident rather than a pattern of repeated failings, who have a substantial record of remediation, and who can show specific evidence of changed circumstances. Applications by practitioners erased for sexual misconduct, child protection failures, or fraud face a particularly high bar.

Where a restoration application is granted, the practitioner is returned to the register, sometimes with conditions of practice attached for a further period.

Where to find restoration outcomes

Restoration hearings are public and the determinations are published in the same way as substantive hearings. MedicWatch records both the original erasure and any subsequent restoration as separate determinations on the practitioner's profile, so the full chronology is visible. A restored practitioner's profile shows the original sanction, the restoration outcome, and any conditions imposed on restoration.