The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 270 No 7234 p140
1 February 2003

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DoH: Counter Fraud Services (more)

Charge fraud pharmacist fined

Defrauding the National Health Service of £2,000 has cost a Derby community pharmacist £27,000.

Lay Ean Atkinson was fined and ordered to pay costs after being found guilty retaining prescription charges paid by patients.

An investigation by the NHS Counter Fraud Service in October 1999 revealed that Ms Atkinson, who owned two pharmacies in the Derby area, had been retaining prescription charges and endorsing prescriptions to suggest that that multiple small packs had been supplied when larger packs had in fact been dispensed.

Ms Atkinson was arrested in July 2000 and found guilty of 15 counts of false accounting at Wolverhampton Crown Court on 5 December 2002. She was cleared of two further counts of false accounting and two counts of giving false information. On 24 January 2003, she was fined £7,500 and ordered to repay the full amount. She was also ordered to pay prosecution costs of £17,500.

The Department of Health took the unusual step of issuing a press release commenting on the case on 27 January. Jim Gee, director of the Counter Fraud Service, said: "All fraud against the NHS, no matter how big or how small, deprives the NHS of resources needed for the delivery of patient care and the continuing improvement of NHS front-line services."

He said that 98 per cent of CFS prosecutions were successful.