NHS Protect formed part of the
NHS Business Services Authority
The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department of Health and Social Care which provides a number of support services to the National Health Service in England and Wales. It was created ...
of the
National Health Service
The National Health Service (NHS) is the term for the publicly funded health care, publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom: the National Health Service (England), NHS Scotland, NHS Wales, and Health and Social Care (Northern ...
until 2017. It had responsibility in
England
England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
for tackling fraud, violence, bribery, corruption, criminal damage, theft and other unlawful action such as market-fixing, and it had responsibility for tackling fraud in the NHS in
Wales
Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...
. It employed 160 people. NHS Protect was replaced by the
NHS Counter Fraud Authority
The NHS Counter Fraud Authority is a special health authority charged with identifying, investigating and preventing fraud and other economic crime within the NHS and the wider health group, formed on 1 November 2017 under section 28 of the Nat ...
in April 2017.
Theft
In July 2014 a former NHS employee, Trevor Cosson, was sentenced to five years in prison, following an investigation by NHS Protect. Cosson had defrauded the NHS of £2.2 million when he managed the payment systems for East Sussex Primary Care Trusts.
Price fixing
In June 2013 the
Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was foun ...
infiltrated reporters into the annual Pharmacy Congress to investigate malpractice in the market for Specials. These products are generally individually priced. In November 2013 the paper reported that "The prices of more than 20,000 drugs could have been artificially inflated, with backhanders paid to chemists who agreed to sell them" and that NHS Protect had mounted an investigation.
Violence against staff
In November 2013 it was reported that the number of criminal sanctions taken in cases of violence against NHS Staff had risen from 1257 in 2011/2 to 1458 in 2012/3, a rise of 15.9%. There was a rise of 5.8% in total reported assaults from 59,744 in 2011–12 to 63,199 in 2012–13.
References
{{reflist
External links
NHS Protect
Defunct National Health Service organisations