Monday 7th December, 2015

NHS fraud investigators raided the offices of Oricom, a telecom company based in Ayrshire last week. The company were awarded £7million worth of contracts with health boards in Scotland.

Staff were sent home as the investigation lead to closure of the company’s head office in Irvine. Paperwork was examined as the probe focused on phone maintenance deals between Oricom and communications chiefs at NHS Lothian and NHS Lanarkshire.

It seems that the contracts may have breached rules on financial wrongdoing in the tendering process.

A team from NHS Scotland Counter Fraud Services were involved in the investigation.

One source commented; "The investigation has been ongoing for the last year because they have won an awful lot of NHS contracts. There are a lot of people involved in this."

NHS Lothian said Alan Hush (Head of telecoms at NHS Lothian), no longer works for them after he resigned last year.

He is understood to have worked with Oricom on contracts worth more than £1.9million.