GUEST BLOGGER
Martin Kenney, CFE

The U.K.’s National Health Service (NHS) is not perfect, but it enjoys global envy as “free health care” for the masses (paid for by U.K. taxpayers). However, the NHS can be a soft target for COVID-19 fraudsters.

The NHS budget is expected to rise to £123 billion ($160 billion) in 2020/21, of which £111 billion ($145 billion) is for day-to-day running costs, including funds for private companies supplying the NHS with medical paraphernalia and services.

Given the sheer size of the budget and the volume of contracts involved, it is unsurprising that rogue companies take advantage of what may be an administrative nightmare for the clerical staff inside the Health Service.

Indeed, the NHS’s vulnerabilities are not limited to fraud connected to contractual and supply issues. In his former professional life as a fraud squad detective, my firm’s U.K.-based senior investigator examined several NHS frauds perpetrated by opticians, pharmacists and dentists. These types of fraud always hit harder due to the position of trust that these health professionals enjoyed.

Some of the tales were cringeworthy: dentists claiming for nonexistent treatments or providers taking payments for treating those already deceased. There were opticians who claimed supplements for examining young children by lying about a child’s age, as well as pharmacists providing vast numbers of paracetamol tablets that would have proven fatal to the patient had the prescriptions been genuine.

The NHS now has its own dedicated Counter Fraud Authority, which exists to police and counter the frauds targeted at this public health colossus. It has its work cut out. So the news that the U.K.’s Department of Health and Social Care, acting on behalf of the NHS, may have inadvertently fallen foul of a £45 million order that failed to deliver the goods promised is unsurprising.

One of its Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) suppliers appears to have become embroiled with one or more of its sub-contractors, which has resulted in a failure to deliver face masks intended for NHS front-line workers dealing with COVID-19 patients.

A game of finger-pointing has broken out, as various companies/suppliers attempt to excuse themselves for their role in what promises to become a contractual muddle. It remains to be seen if there has been any wrongdoing, but the early signs (including multiple failed delivery dates, excuses such as banking delays, and failures attributed to suppliers further down the chain) are disquieting.

The real victim in all of this isn’t the NHS (or its immediate suppliers): rather it is the medical teams of doctors, nurses and NHS support staff who are on the front line in the battle against a rampant COVID-19 disease.

I regularly make the point that fraud is not a victimless crime. And even more so now, with front-line medics’ lives at stake in the war against the coronavirus.

With thanks to Tony McClements, Senior Investigator at Martin Kenney & Co, for his assistance with this post. He served for 33 years with U.K. police forces and has specialized in Fraud and Financial Investigation since 1998. He is also a lecturer in these subjects at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN).

Martin is Managing Partner of Martin Kenney & Co., Solicitors, a specialist investigative and asset recovery practice based in the BVI, focused on multi-jurisdictional fraud and grand corruption cases. In 2014 he was the recipient of the ACFE’s highest honor: the Cressey Award for life-time achievement in the detection and deterrence of fraud. In 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020 he was chosen as a global elite “Thought Leader” by Who’s Who Legal and also selected as the number one offshore asset recovery lawyer worldwide over the same period.

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