Fraud Awareness Week: Conviction for £800,000 NHS and HMRC fraud

November 15, 2021

Throughout Fraud Awareness Week we will be highlighting the most reported frauds across the NHS, providing some guidance on preventing these and identifying when you should report your concerns.

Conviction for £800,000 NHS and HMRC fraud

Essex IT manager, Barry Stannard (53 of Chelmsford, Essex, previously of Hadleigh, Ipswich), was sentenced to five years and four months’ imprisonment for defrauding the NHS and HMRC of over £800,000 (Chelmsford Crown Court, 30 June 2021).

Stannard was Head of Unified Communications at Mid Essex Hospital Services NHS Trust (now Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust).

He had submitted a ‘nil return’ declaration of interests form to the Trust but was actually the director of two companies. These companies received large sums of money from the Trust over at least seven years, because Stannard was submitting and then authorising the invoices.

No products  or services invoiced for by these companies were ever provided to the NHS.

Stannard also charged for VAT with a registration number that didn’t belong to his companies. The VAT he charged the NHS totalled £132,000 and was never passed to HMRC.

The fraud was identified after the Trust ran a data matching exercise on its payroll and accounts payable records, alongside Companies House records.

Stannard pleaded guilty to two charges of fraud by false representation and two of  cheating the public revenue. The total amount defrauded over a seven-year period was £806,229.80.

The full article can be found on the NHS CFA website here

All suspicions of fraud or bribery should be reported to the Local Counter Fraud Specialist Sophie Coster (Tel: 07436 268747), Chief Finance Officer Dinah McLannahan; or NHSCFA via 0800 028 40 60