Speech And Language Therapist Sacked From The NHS After Bosses Realise She ‘Couldn’t Understand English’

A speech and language therapist who claimed English was her native tongue in order to dodge language proficiency checks has been sacked by the NHS.

Sai Keerthana Sriperambuduru, who joined the York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in October 2023, is actually only fluent in Telugu, which is no good when you’re working as a speech & language therapist in an English-speaking country.

Ms. Sriperambuduru eventually admitted she couldn’t understand her English-speaking colleagues or patients, and was sacked after just eight months working at York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals Trust.

Her colleagues had clocked within weeks of beginning her role that she appeared “unable to communicate” with them or with patients.

She was then called into a meeting where she admitted to bosses that Telugu was her native language and not English as she had previously claimed.

Amazingly, they kept her on, as she was taking regular English lessons outside of work in order to improve her English.

However, she later confessed she was still struggling with understanding English due to children and parents speaking quickly.

At that point, she was sacked.

You might be wondering – how does someone get past the interview process to become a speech and language therapist for the NHS if their English isn’t up to par?

It’s simple, really – Ms. Sriperambuduru requested to use a chat-box facility in her application which allowed interviewers to type questions to her instead of face-to-face. Incredible! You would think a video call/chat with the speech and language therapist you’re about to employ would be necessary, but apparently not. Maybe the interviewer couldn’t speak English either?

A spokesperson for York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: ‘Ms Sai Keerthana Sriperambuduru was employed by York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust between October 2023 and June 2024. 

‘Her employment was terminated in June 2024.

‘The Trust referred the matter to the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC), and Ms Sriperambuduru has not worked for the Trust since.’

Makes you wonder how many other people may be working in the NHS right now who shouldn’t be. 8 months pay for basically doing nothing though? Not bad.

For the NHS doctor who spied on men in the toilets because he wanted to ‘compare penis size’, click HERE.