According to a recent audit of 5,000 NHS practices, dishonest dentists have swindled the National Health Service out of £73.1m by inventing patients or exaggerating the amount of work carried out on existing ones. Three per cent of claims examined were found to be unnecessary or made out to ‘ghost patients’ and this could cost taxpayers around £146.3m over the next two years, if the fraudulent behaviour continues.
The report, carried out by dental contactor Loss Analysis Exercise, is an attempt to flush out dishonest practitioners who are using the system to top up their income fraudulently; around 4,200 patients were traced and questioned about their dental treated, then the researchers cross-referenced the information with the amount their dentist had claimed for in their name. Seventy-five per cent of claims were valid, whereas twenty-two per cent went untraced, and three per cent were described as ‘suspected contractor fraud.’ In half of the seventy-seven fraudulent claims, the dentists were thought to be charging for more work than they had actually provided. Twenty-seven per cent of that number had split the cost of treatment into multiple claims, and a further ten per cent was submitted for patients that did not even exist.
Health Minister, Lord Howe, was quick to point the finger at the previous labour government – who were in power when the fraud took place – saying; ‘Taxpayers will rightly be appalled at the £70 million price tag they are paying for Labour’s botched stewardship of NHS dentistry…. We will not tolerate any kind of fraud we uncover.’