A RADIOGRAPHER who touched a patient without her consent and asked her to go for a coffee with him has been struck off.

A Health and Care Professions Council panel found that the actions of Surinder Singh-Digpal, who worked as a locum radiographer at University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, amounted to “serious misconduct”.

The panel heard that Mr Singh-Digpal was given a warning after behaving inappropriately towards a colleague and a patient in 2008 but that a number of subsequent incidents took place from March 2012 to August 2013.

The list of allegations against him included that he told a co-worker that she was beautiful, said to a different colleague that he would “show her how to use massage oil properly”, and tried to give his mobile phone number to a patient.

Panel chairman Manuela Grayson said: “Taken in isolation some of the allegations might not have amounted to misconduct but taken as a whole they demonstrate a pattern of behaviour which falls well short of the standards expected of a registered radiographer, and amounts to serious misconduct.”

He was struck off from the HCPC register after the hearing, at which he was described as being “evasive and “inconsistent”, and no longer works at either Southampton General Hospital or Portsmouth Hospital Trust.

Mr Singh-Digpal disputed some aspects of the allegations, arguing that the actions he had taken were for legitimate work purposes and that his actions had been misconstrued by patients and colleagues.

Additionally he cited marital difficulties and bereavements in his family as reasons for his behaviour.

But a HCPC report states: “Some of the misconduct has been found by the panel to be sexually motivated. Such behaviour by a registered health professional is unacceptable, particularly when it occurred in a hospital environment when the registrant was on duty and was directed towards a junior member of staff.”