Friday 25th September, 2015

A new report led by Jim Gee, former Director of NHS Counter Fraud Services says that up to £5.7 billion a year, out of an overall budget of £110m could be lost by the NHS to fraud by patients and staff.

The report, which was highlighted by the BBC yesterday, suggests that fraud was taking place across areas such as general practice, dentistry, prescriptions and payroll. Mr Gee and the reports' co-author Professor Mark Button who is the director of the Centre for Counter Fraud Studies at Portsmouth University, said they hoped the research "focusses attention" on the issue.

The authors of the report, published by PKF Littlejohn accountants, said: "Fraud has negative consequences in all sectors, but in healthcare the impact of fraud is even more pernicious. Quite simply it has a direct, negative impact on human life as the quality, quantity and speed of patient care is diminished."

The report highlighted that one of the areas where the losses were the highest was in payroll - where it was estimated to be between £555m and £1.49bn. It claimed that the T&E area was particularly prone to abuse.

On top of that, it suggested that the NHS was victim to procurement scams, such as under-providing goods and services.

NHS patients are also in the spotlight, with some patients falsely claiming for free services.

Mr Gee told the BBC: "There is a vast, honest majority who find fraud against the NHS to be completely unacceptable. However, there is also a dishonest minority who can cause significant financial damage.

"The best way of stopping this is not to wait for fraud to happen and then act after losses have been incurred, but to proactively deter and prevent them. Fraud is a cost to be measured, managed and minimised like any other."

However, the government said the report was "highly speculative" and "full of inconsistencies".