by Attractor
NHS Pay Fraud and Errors 2010
10:00 am in Latest News by Attractor
People Management reported a case recently where an NHS employee was paid for a period of nearly two years after she left her job. The ex-employee began to receive payments in April 2008, almost a year after she left the Trust.
According to reports, errors transferring staff information at Calderdale Primary Care Trust during the migration of data to the Electronic Staff Record (which went live in April 2008) causedThe error was eventually identified during an internal audit exercise in January 2010.
Yvonne Atkinson, a healthcare support worker, had not alerted her former employer and received almost £22k over 22 months. Apparently her partner had persuaded her not to contact the employer. When challenged by the organisation, the ex-employee admiting knowing she was not entitled to the money and subsequently pleaded guilty to theft.
She was eventually sentenced to a four months’ suspended prison sentence and a 12-month supervision order.
Further problems came to light with NHS payroll arrangements earlier in the year when, in September 2010, around 350 employees at NHS Sefton, located in Bootle Merseyside, were notified they had received overtime payments due to a calculation error.
In this case there was no suggestion of dishonesty, errors relating to unsocial hours payments – an area where earnings can vary regularly and employees often find it difficult to keep track of the details.
At NHS Sefton, the overpayments ranged from £20 up to a maximum of £4,500 with overpayments totaling about £160k and the Trust contacted staff, asking them to pay back the amounts overpaid over a reasonable period – of up to three years.
Once again, the errors were identified as a result of audit activity carried out by the Trust’s new payroll provider carried out an audit exercise. Payroll procedures were changed to prevent such a problem recurring.
An NHS employee working for NHS Greater Glasgow also admitted to defrauding NHS Scotland of around £38k by claiming for hours that she had not worked at Stobhill Hospital between 2006 and 2008. After moving from a job as a cleaner to become a part-time administration assistant, while still working as a cleaner.
The employee recorded additional hours she worked as a cleaner and, after the records had been authorised by her line manager, the employee added hours which she had not worked and these papers were submitted for payment.
When the Trust’s management team queried a budget overspend, audit review uncovered the discrepancies and led to the scam being discovered. The employee was jailed for a period of eight months.
