Doctor who defrauded NHS must repay £66k
ADOCTOR who defrauded the NHS out of tens of thousands of pounds to pay off a gambling debt has been ordered to pay back £66,000.
Dr Aled Jones, 39, claimed payments for overlapping locum shifts from four Welsh health boards while employed as a registrar at the University Hospital of Wales (UHW) in Cardiff.
Between 2016 and 2019 he submitted claims for payment for shifts he had worked but many of these overlapped with each other.
This resulted in the defendant working more than one non-residential oncall shift for two hospitals at the same time, risking a situation where he might have been called out to two patients at once.
He also carried out on-call shifts during his contracted hours at UHW and also made claims for payment for shifts he did not work, as well as taking uncashed cheques for other doctors from a folder which had open access among staff.
Jones would then add his own name to the cheques in circumstances where the name had been left blank, and even opened an account in the name of ‘S Holloway’ in order to pay in a batch of cheques in another doctor’s name.
The defendant, of Rookwood Close, Llandaff, later pleaded guilty to fraud by abuse of position and fraud by false representation and was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, suspended for two years, on March 9.
A Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) hearing at Cardiff Crown Court yesterday was told Jones had benefited by £66,838 as a result of his criminal behaviour. Prosecutor Christian Jowett said the amount available to Jones was £307,932.
Judge Neil Bidder QC made the defendant subject to a confiscation order of £66,838, with compensation of £32,224 to be taken from that amount to compensate the four health boards.
He was also ordered to pay court costs of £6,657.