The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 279 No 7464 p144
11 August 2007

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News summary

Document seizure codes of practice out for consultation

Consultation has started on codes of practice for the seizure of documents from NHS organisations, contractors and health professionals for the purpose of investigating fraud.

Draft codes (one each for England and Wales) have been produced by the Department of Health, setting out the proposed procedures to be used by authorised NHS Counter Fraud and Security Management Service investigators when documents are required for examination.

The draft codes suggest that demands for documents to be produced should be timed so that they do not interfere with patient care and should make it clear that failure to provide the required documents is a criminal offence.

Documents required to be disclosed should be kept to a minimum and should be limited to those that contain only anonymised patient information, where possible. It will be necessary to get consent from patients when documents that contain data that identify individual patients are needed.