When the public have any contact with health professionals to any degree, they must be confident that those who are involved in any way in their treatment are suitable types of people to deal with patients.

So it is unsurprising that dental nurse Gurvinder Lall has been struck off by the General Dental Council for both his behaviour and what the inquiry heard was “sustained and deliberate dishonesty”.

Mr Lall was jailed for six months last year following a violent altercation in the street. Granted, this did not occur while he was actually on duty as a dental assistant at his uncle’s practice in Shipley, but it is precisely the sort of behaviour which any health worker should not in any circumstances be indulging in, on or off the job.

Almost as worrying is the fact that Mr Lall knowingly omitted to tell the organisers of a dental course at a Lancashire university that he was not registered with the General Dental Council.

Mr Lall feared that he would not be allowed on the course; the fact he neglected to disclose this suggests a dishonest nature that is not in keeping with a job involving delivering health treatment to the public.

Mr Lall’s striking off sends out a clear message to anyone who would be considered for such a job: violence and dishonesty are simply never excusable, especially in such positions of trust.

Those individuals who seek to cheat the system will be found out in the end.

Far better to not take the chance, nor to shake the confidence the general public simply has to have in health workers.