This blog was co-authored by Evan Wright and Olivia Gregson.

Restoration should never be automatic, but the existence of restoration and readmission mechanisms recognises that people and circumstances can change. The difficult question is whether the evidence demonstrates a safe and credible return.

Being struck from a professional register or prohibited from performing a regulated function is one of the most serious consequences a regulated professional can face. It can end a career built over decades. In my role as a legal advisor to a regulator’s disciplinary panel, I say – a sanction’s objective is not punitive, but it can have a punitive impact.   

There are good reasons why regulators have these powers. Professional regulation exists to protect the public, maintain appropriate professional standards and preserve confidence in professions and regulated markets.

It follows that restoration should never be automatic.

Many professionals who have been removed or prohibited will not be suitable for restoration. In some cases the original conduct will have been exceptionally serious. In others, subsequent behaviour may show that significant concerns remain. An applicant may still lack insight into what went wrong, may have done little to address the underlying problem, or may no longer possess the knowledge and skills necessary to return safely.

But that is not the end of the analysis.

The fact that several regulatory regimes expressly provide mechanisms by which a person can seek restoration or readmission recognises an important principle: people and circumstances can change.

Where there is convincing evidence of that change, the question becomes whether an experienced professional who is now capable of practising safely should permanently be lost to the profession. The difficulty lies in distinguishing between the two.

Restoration is not a reversal of the original decision

One of the most important misconceptions about restoration is that it provides an opportunity to conduct the original case again.

The NMC, for example, states that its restoration panel is bound by the findings and decision of the panel that removed or struck off the professional. A restoration hearing is not an opportunity to argue again about the original findings or the severity of the sanction.

Following the example, the panel instead considers whether the applicant is now a fit and proper person to practise. Relevant considerations include the applicant’s insight, whether the original concerns have been addressed, employment since removal, efforts to remain professionally up to date, ability to practise safely in future and the effect of restoration upon public confidence.

There is a similar emphasis in other professions.

A doctor erased for disciplinary reasons cannot normally apply for restoration until five years after erasure. GMC guidance refers to material such as testimonials and evidence of steps taken to keep medical skills and knowledge up to date. MPTS guidance places restoration within the overarching objective of protecting the public, maintaining confidence in the profession and maintaining proper professional standards.

For HCPC registrants removed following fitness-to-practise proceedings, restoration is also ordinarily unavailable until five years after removal. Applicants who have been off the Register for five years or more must complete the applicable updating period, and repeated unsuccessful applications can affect the ability to make further applications.

These are not systems designed to make restoration easy. They are systems designed to determine whether circumstances have genuinely changed.

Time is relevant, but time alone does not demonstrate change

An applicant might understandably think:

“I was struck off five years ago. I have served my time. I should now be allowed back.”

A period away from a profession may be relevant, but simply remaining away does not establish insight, remediation or current competence.

The more difficult questions are likely to be:

• What has the professional come to understand about the conduct that resulted in removal?
• Why did it happen?
• Have the factors that contributed to it actually been addressed?
• What has the professional done in the intervening period?
• What evidence supports the claimed change?
• Have professional knowledge and skills been maintained or restored?
• What would a return to practice now look like for this individual?
• What safeguards would reduce the risk of the same problem occurring again? 

The precise legal tests differ between regulators but the questions illustrate why a credible restoration case is usually about considerably more than producing a collection of CPD certificates.

Dishonesty and integrity require particularly careful consideration

Some regulatory concerns are more readily capable of remediation than others.

An administrative failure caused partly by inadequate systems may be addressed by demonstrating that appropriate systems, supervision and safeguards have subsequently been developed and properly implemented.

A competence deficiency may, depending upon the profession and circumstances, be capable of being addressed through training, assessment, supervised experience and evidence of current competence.

Dishonesty is different.

Completing an ethics course is important but does not, without more, demonstrate that a person previously found to have acted dishonestly is now trustworthy.

The more difficult work may involve understanding why the dishonest behaviour occurred, how it was rationalised at the time, what the individual now understands about its consequences and what has changed in their decision-making or circumstances.

This is one reason restoration preparation should not become a box-ticking exercise.

The RCVS provides some stark illustrations. In a February 2026 restoration decision, the Disciplinary Committee refused an application where it found further misleading and dishonest conduct after the applicant’s original removal. In another case reported in August 2026, a thirteenth restoration application was refused. Among the matters identified were the applicant’s continuing lack of insight into the original failings and concerns about maintaining the knowledge and competence required to practise.

These decisions demonstrate an important point: restoration exists, but an application for restoration does not carry an entitlement to a second chance. The evidence still has to justify the application.

What about experienced professionals who have genuinely changed?

There is another side to the issue. Professional misconduct does not necessarily erase everything that preceded it.

A professional may have practised successfully for many years before a particular period of misconduct or failure. There may have been unusual personal, health, financial, workplace or organisational circumstances surrounding what occurred. Those circumstances do not excuse misconduct simply because they provide context.

However, circumstances can matter when trying to understand why something happened and, importantly, whether it is likely to happen again.

• If the causes have subsequently been identified and addressed,
• the professional has developed genuine insight,
• relevant remediation has taken place,
• competence has been maintained or restored and
• convincing safeguards exist for future practice. 

There may be a legitimate case for a regulator to consider whether permanent exclusion remains necessary. This does not amount to being “soft” on professional misconduct. It is asking the question that a genuine restoration regime is intended to answer.

The public interest operates in both directions, but public protection must remain paramount

Nobody ought to return to regulated practice simply because they want their previous career back, or because they have experienced the considerable consequences of removal.

However, the public interest is also not necessarily served by treating every regulatory failing as demonstrating that an individual is incapable of ever changing.

There may be value in returning experienced professionals to responsible practice when the applicable regulatory test is properly satisfied.

The crucial words are when the test is satisfied.

A restoration process has credibility precisely because some applications should fail.

Indeed, unsuccessful applications can illustrate what is required just as clearly as successful ones:

• acceptance where appropriate,
• meaningful insight,
• evidence rather than assertion,
• continuing professional development and
• a convincing explanation of why the original risk has changed.

Financial services: different terminology, similar questions

The position within financial services deserves particular mention because the language of “restoration to the register” does not translate neatly into the FCA regime.

The FCA can make prohibition orders where it considers an individual not fit and proper. An order may prevent somebody from performing any function in relation to regulated activities or they can be restricted to specified functions. The FCA can also withdraw an approved person’s approval where the individual is not fit and proper to perform the relevant controlled function, but prohibition need not invariably be the end of the matter.

The FCA has a process for applications to vary or revoke prohibition orders. Its published guidance identifies considerations including:

• the seriousness of the original misconduct or unfitness;
• the time since the order;
• steps subsequently taken to remedy the problem;
• subsequent information concerning honesty, integrity or competence;
• evidence of addressing competence deficiencies through training, qualifications or supervision;
• financial soundness; and
• whether the individual would continue to pose the level of risk to consumers or confidence in the financial system that resulted in the prohibition.

Those considerations have obvious similarities with restoration issues arising in other regulated professions, even though the statutory regime and procedure are different.

Refusal is a real possibility. In a recent example, the regulator refused an application to revoke a prohibition order after concluding, among other things, that the applicant had not accepted that his behaviour was wrong, had not demonstrated remediation of the fitness and propriety concerns and had not shown that the relevant risk would not continue.

Conversely, prohibition orders can be revoked in appropriate circumstances. In July 2025, the FCA announced that it had revoked a prohibition order following the Supreme Court judgment quashing the criminal conviction upon which the FCA action had been based.

Financial-services professionals therefore belong in the wider discussion about returning to regulated practice, provided the important differences in terminology and procedure are respected.

Different professions, recurring themes

The detail varies considerably.

A former RICS member who makes an application following disciplinary expulsion is subject to additional regulatory review. RICS’s published rules expressly include consideration of steps taken to address the issues for which the individual was expelled.

A solicitor struck off the roll must apply to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal for restoration rather than simply making the ordinary SRA administrative application for restoration to the roll.

ARB’s Registration Rules deal with the mechanisms by which former architects can be reinstated to the Architects Register.

The terminology, eligibility rules, evidential requirements and decision-maker therefore need to be identified for the particular profession.

Nevertheless, some recurring themes emerge:

• What led to the original regulatory action?
• What caused or contributed to it?
• What does the professional understand now that was not adequately understood before?
• What has been done to address the problem?
• What independent evidence demonstrates that change?
• Have professional knowledge and skills been maintained or restored?
• Most importantly, can the professional now return without creating an unacceptable risk to (where applicable) the public, clients, patients, animals, markets or confidence in the profession?

Those questions are deliberately more demanding than “How do I fill in the restoration form?”

Preparation should start before the application

One mistake is to think about restoration only when the earliest application date approaches. Some forms of remediation necessarily take time.

A certificate can be obtained in a day. A sustained change in behaviour, an established system of working, meaningful continuing professional development or a credible body of independent evidence ordinarily cannot be manufactured at the point an application is submitted.

For some professions there are also formal requirements concerning professional updating. HCPC, for example, requires an updating period for restoration applicants who have been off its Register for five years or more.

This means that the period following removal may matter enormously. The question is not simply: “When can I apply?” A more useful question may be: “What will I need to demonstrate about the intervening period?”

There is no universal formula for restoration

This is perhaps the most important message.

• A practitioner erased following a finding of dishonesty should not prepare in precisely the same way as a practitioner removed following clinical deficiencies.
• An FCA professional prohibited because of integrity concerns is not subject to the same considerations as a nurse struck off by an NMC panel.
• A surveyor seeking readmission following disciplinary expulsion is not making the same application as a solicitor seeking restoration to the roll after being struck off.
• A person who maintains that the original decision was entirely wrong may face very different challenges from somebody who accepts what happened and has spent several years addressing it.

There is therefore no responsible “DIY restoration kit” that can guarantee an outcome.

What can be done is to approach the problem systematically, identify the applicable regulatory test, understand where the weaknesses lie and decide what evidence is realistically capable of addressing them.

Considering a future return to regulated practice?

If you have previously been removed from a professional register, expelled from professional membership, or prohibited from working in regulated financial services, you may need to begin careful preparation well before you make an application.

JMW’s Professional Regulation team can advise on the applicable regulatory route and the issues that may need to be addressed.

If you would like to discuss your individual regulatory position, please get in touch with evan.wright@jmw.co.uk in JMW’s Professional Regulation team.

Evan Wright is a partner and barrister specialising in professional regulation cases. He is a legal advisor to disciplinary panels, a certified Law Society LEXCEL consultant and a civil and commercial mediator.