Fraudsters are looting the NHS
Fraudsters are getting away with nearly £120 million a year from the NHS, the Evening Standard has discovered.
It is believed the full scale of the problem is still to emerge, but the latest figures show fraud in prescriptions dentistry, and optician services alone cost the NHS at least £118 million last year.
And fewer than one in ten suspected health service rackets results in a conviction - raising doubts about the effectiveness of anti-fraud measures.
A 1998 Audit Commission report highlighted the potential for NHS fraud and worryingly low levels of detection. It prompted the Government to set up the NHS Counter Fraud Service. But the CFS's latest findings show that while 500 suspected cases a year are uncovered fewer than 50 are successfully prosecuted.
The fraud involces both NHS professionals and patients. Practices uncovered include
- Chemists who sign off bogus free prescriptions to claim cash for them
- A health authority IT manager who set up two bogus software companies and siphoned off more than £64,000 over six years
- A head of hospital catering who made £225,000 by buying meat from a butcher without written confirmation and selling it to staff, the public and local shops
- An optician who made more than £75,000 over two years claiming for nonexistent glasses and sight tests using the names of dead people.
The hospital was forced to check over 9,000 travel expense claims dating back more than two years - but insisted the case was an isolated one.
Today fraud experts admitted the travel expenses system - which allowed one couple to make £300,000 - was still open to abuse and must be urgently reviewed. NHS counter fraud specialist Dave Gander said: "There are no bounds to the lengths people will go to obtain money by deception. The latest travel expenses case is obviously extreme but it would be stupid to say it could not happen again."
Under government rules, anyone on income support, or who receives working tax credit or child tax credit, and earns less than £14,200 a year, can claim travel costs to hospital appointments for themselves and up to two friends or relatives.
Checking that personal information and documents given by patients are genuine is the job of clerical staff who are often under severe time pressure.
Labour MP David Hinchliffe, chairman of the Commons health select committee, said: "There is a need for much more urgent monitoring. and I would would expect the government to learn some major lessons."
