Trusted manager of GP surgery stole £324,000
THE manager of a busy doctors’ surgery systematically stole more than £320,000 from the business, a court has heard.
Clare Boland used her trusted role to pay herself thousands of pounds a month on top of her £53,000 salary, with the money being disguised as payments to a locum doctor.
Swansea Crown Court heard the fraud, which went on for more than four years, has had a significant impact on the surgery, and left staff “devastated” and fearing for their jobs. The defendant has been jailed for three years.
Peter Donnison, prosecuting, said Boland began working at the Fairfield surgery in Port Talbot – a GP centre with more than 800 patients on its books – in 2009. The defendant was practice manager, a role which meant she had sole responsibility for the surgery’s finances including organising payment to doctors and staff and paying bills and expenses.
The court heard the fraud came to light in February 2022 when one of the doctors at the surgery happened to see a document which set out staff payments and noticed a payment of £9,000 which appeared to be to a doctor who had worked as a oneday-a-week locum at the surgery some years previously. Concerned, the doctor contacted the payroll company which handles salaries and it emerged that regular payments in sums of thousands of pounds had been made to that same account since August 2017.
It subsequently emerged that the Co-op bank account in question belonged not to the locum medic but to Boland and that £324,706.85 had been paid into it between August 2017 and February 2022.
The prosecutor said that on March 14, 2022, the partners at the surgery spoke to the defendant about the payments to the locum and were told it was an “admin error” and the payments should have been recorded as going to Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs for monies owed. The next day Boland emailed the partners setting out her responsibilities and duties as practice manager and telling them she felt “humiliated” at the way she had been approached about the payments.
The court heard the defendant was suspended from work on March 18 and was invited to meetings to discuss the situation but declined to attend, saying she was unwell.
Boland was arrested at her home address in May, and subsequently answered “no comment” to all questions asked in interview.
The prosecutor said the theft of the money has put the surgery at “substantial financial risk” and left staff “devastated” and fearing for their jobs. He said it has since emerged that a number of bills and liabilities which should have been paid by Boland in the course of her duties – including one for £91,000 – were not paid. He said the two partners in the practice are liable for deficits in the business and the fraud has had a significant emotional and financial impact on them.
Boland, 51, of Shelone Road, Briton Ferry, had previously pleaded guilty to one count of fraud by abuse of position when she appeared in the dock for sentencing. She had no previous convictions.
Robin Rouch, for Boland, said it was accepted that a sentence of immediate custody was inevitable and said the key mitigation in the case was the fact that the defendant was the sole carer for her daughter.
Judge Catherine Richard said while the fraud was not the most sophisticated of offences, the harm caused was significant. She noted references submitted to the court spoke highly of the defendant as someone who was dedicated to her work, the NHS, her family and her friends, and she said it was clear Boland had been a “net contributor to society”.
The judge said the starting point for sentence was five-and-a-half years’ custody but that would be reduced to four years to reflect the mitigation in the case, primarily Boland’s previous good character and the “very significant” impact on the defendant’s daughter.
With a one-quarter discount for her guilty plea, Boland was sentenced to three years in prison. She will serve up to half that period in custody before serving the remainder in the community. A proceeds of crime investigation will now be carried out into Boland’s finances.