ROYAL Blackburn Hospital has been scammed out of thousands of pounds by fraudsters who falsely claimed for shifts they did not work.

Medical recruitment agent Charles Elad persuaded four health care assistants and a to defraud four hospitals – including the Royal Blackburn – out of more than £70,000.

The 46-year-old was working as a recruitment officer for ID Medical at the time of the offences.

Each of the five workers was convicted of separate fraud conspiracies with Elad. His wife Tanyi Elad was also convicted of a money laundering offence.

The total loss to the NHS was £72,991.11. Various NHS hospitals in England were targeted, including Scunthorpe General, Royal Blackburn, Shrewsbury and Darlington.

Elad enlisted George Kiberu, Violet Nhende, Abosede Amusan, Ernest Anonyo and Rilindis Bessem to submit large numbers of fraudulent timesheets to the recruitment agency, who were unaware of the fraudulent activity taking place.

The agency workers were subsequently paid for the unworked shift and the agency then unknowingly invoiced the various trusts for these shifts.

Once an agency worker had been paid for the ghost shifts, Elad would then request they make a payment to him, using his wife's bank account to hide the transactions.

The initial investigation started at the local level. As they realised the problem extended to other areas, the Local Counter Fraud Specialist (LCFS) for Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust, referred the case up to the national body.

NHS Counter Fraud Authority investigators were able to prove in court both that Charles Elad had conspired with the other defendants, and how he had been the orchestrator of their activity.

Nhende, Kiberu and Anonyo pleaded guilty to their charges, with the remaining defendants entering not guilty pleas and going to trial.

Charles Elad received three years’ imprisonment. He had denied five counts of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation and one count of fraud. He was convicted of four counts of conspiracy to commit fraud and one count of fraud, with the remaining conspiracy count left to lie on file.

Abosede Amusan, 38, and Rilindis Bessem, 39, received 16 month and six month prison sentences respectively.

They each denied one count of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation but were convicted by the jury.

Violet Nhende, 49, George Kiberu, 50, and Ernest Anonyo, 40, received suspended prison sentences.

They each admitted one count of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation.

Tanyi Esekang Elad, 38, denied converting criminal property but was convicted by the jury.

She received a four month prison sentence, suspended for two years.

Richard Rippin, head of operations at the NHSCFA, said: “We are delighted with the outcome of this investigation.

"Although this crime was orchestrated by Charles Elad, all seven conspired to deliberately defraud multiple NHS organisations.

"They had been employed to care for NHS patients, but instead took resources away from patient care for their own personal gain."

A spokesman for East Lancashire Hospitals Trust, said: “The criminals convicted of this fraud were involved in carefully planned conspiracies to defraud the NHS, including our Trust, out of thousands of pounds.

"These were not victimless crimes. We all know that the NHS needs every pound it has to treat people who are ill and provide the best care we can.

“We’d like to thank our colleagues at North Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust who initially spotted this fraud, as well as staff here at ELHT who took immediate steps to review and strengthen the controls we have in place to manage agency timesheets and invoices.

”The trust takes its responsibility for tackling NHS fraud, bribery and corruption extremely seriously.

"We have ongoing information and education programmes which encourage our staff, stakeholders and the public to join us in the fight against NHS fraud.”