A Senior House Officer who deceived the General Dental Council (GDC) with a faked dental qualification and gained numerous NHS jobs over nine years, has been jailed for three years for fraud.

Vinisha Sharma, 37, of Honeybourne Way, Willenhall, West Midlands, received three years imprisonment on each of seven charges, to run concurrently (Wolverhampton Crown Court, 28 March, 2011). The sentence follows a complex investigation by the NHS Counter Fraud Service (NHS CFS), which extended to India. A confiscation hearing is set for July.

Sharma fraudulently earned hundreds of thousands of pounds from NHS hospitals across England. She pleaded guilty to seven fraud-related offences and later tried, unsuccessfully, to withdraw the plea. Charges that she also lied about her 'O' and 'A' level grades in job applications to multiple NHS employers were left to lie on file.

Sharma was caught after a colleague raised the alarm at the Queen Victoria Hospital Foundation Trust (QVH) in East Grinstead, Sussex. The trust had employed Sharma as a Senior House Officer (SHO) in its Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery Department, where she started work in February 2008. She earned a salary of around £35,000, plus an added 40% on call allowance.

Only a qualified dentist who has passed the Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) can receive registration from the GDC. Sharma provided falsified copies of certificates and received temporary registration, effectively giving her the licence to practise in the UK and apply for all her jobs in NHS hospitals (working under the supervision of consultants).

On her online job application form, Sharma claimed she was a qualified dentist and had completed the BDS in 1998 at the Sri Guru Ram Das Institute for Dental Sciences and Research in India, after studying for three years of the BDS at Kings College, London. She provided copies of certificates to the QVH and the General Dental Council that appeared to confirm this. After a telephone job interview she went through the QVH's normal pre-employment and reference checks.

The GDC confirmed they would have refused to register Sharma had they known the truth, that she had no BDS. The trust also confirmed that they would never have employed her had they been aware.

The investigation established that she did study for the first three years of a five year BDS course at Kings College, but had struggled: her studentship terminated in the fourth year as she had been asked to re-sit year three due to concerns over her readiness to clinically progress to year 4. She also had to re-take the entire first year. As she was unsuccessful in passing all of the Part 1 examinations in June and September 1993 she was permitted to repeat Year 1 in the following academic year. After suspicions were reported to the Local Counter Fraud Specialist by a member of staff, the trust suspended Sharma on full pay in December 2008 pending the outcome of an investigation (her contract ended in February 2009).

When interviewed, Sharma admitted the form had not been completed correctly and she did not have the qualification of MFDS (Member of the Faculty of Dental Surgery) Part A as stated, but claimed someone had completed the form on her behalf and made a mistake.

She provided a Certificate of Registration from the Punjab Dental Council (PDC) at the interview and also a copy of a BDS degree qualification that she said confirmed her qualifications.

It emerged later that Sharma had not passed the crucial BDS either, but had adapted the certificate of a genuine BDS graduate. The Principal of the Sri Guru Ram Das Institute for Dental Sciences confirmed she had never studied there nor passed the BDS. Further checks with Indian authorities confirmed that Sharma did not appear on any register in India as a qualified dentist.

In November 2006, Sharma put herself forward for an Assessment of Eligibility for Registration as a Dentist, which would have allowed her to gain full registration at the GDC. To support her application she produced the false copies of qualification certificates from the Sri Guru Ram Das Institute. But the GDC did not grant her full registration, a decision upheld by an independent panel in April 2008, after Sharma challenged it.

When arrested, she denied that she had submitted false qualification certificates, claiming she was unable to produce the original certificates because she had taken them to India to get them verified. But the Punjab Dental Council confirmed that she was not registered with it and that she had provided the GDC with details relating to a different person.

Sharma used various means to help avoid detection: her placements were fairly short, she took time off sick , changed her shifts to avoid more complicated procedures, and travelled quite frequently to India. Worried by her apparent lack of skills and general behaviour, two consultants complained about Sharma's fitness to practice in July 2003 when she worked at Burton Hospital, but the GDC's Fitness to Practice section found no case to answer.

She later claimed that all the officials at the Sri Guru Ram Das Institute were corrupt, that this was normal in India, and that they were taking revenge because her family had stopped paying them bribes. These allegations were denied and she provided no evidence for them.

Mick Hayes, Operational Fraud Manager, NHS Counter Fraud Service, said today:

"This case was first investigated by the Local Counter Fraud Specialist for the Queen Victoria Trust, who correctly referred it to us, as a high value cross-border case. Because Sharma initially denied the charges, extensive enquiries had to be made in India to locate and bring to the UK a number of key witnesses. Only when faced with their evidence did she finally change her plea to guilty - but then changed it back again just before sentencing. We are very grateful to those witnesses and to the Indian authorities.

NHS CFS will follow up all suspicions of fraud against the NHS that are reported to us, pressing for the prosecution of offenders and the strongest sanctions to deter fraud."

In summing up, the Judge commented:

"Everything was planned and predetermined and wasn't made up on the spur of the moment....Vinisha Sharma was evasive and manipulative."

He stressed that "Confidence must be maintained in public institutions...Patients have a right to be treated by professionals."

Notes

1. Sharma's total earnings from the NHS were at least £229,584.04: at the Royal Wolverhampton (£16,569.49 from February 2000 to August 2000,); Oxford Group of Hospitals (total unknown, from September 2000 to March 2001); Heatherwood & Wexham Park NHS Foundation Trust (total unknown, from October 2001 to February 2002); Burton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (total £44,183.23 from February 2002 to February 2003); Southend Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (£10,726.45, from December 2003 to February 2004); Basildon & Thurrock NHS Foundation Trust (£20,177.59 from February 2004 to May 2004 - where she was on certified sick leave throughout, so did not treat a single patient); Peterborough & Stamford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (£81,065.41 from November 2005 to March 2007); and the Queen Victoria Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (£56,861.88 from February 2008 to February 2009).

2. On Wednesday 29th September 2010 Sharma pleaded guilty to: one count of Using a False Instrument, contrary to the Forgery & Counterfeiting Act , five counts of Obtaining a Pecuniary Advantage by Deception, contrary to Section 16 of the Theft Act 1968 (in respect of employment at the Royal Wolverhampton Hospital, Burton Hospital, Southend Hospital, Basildon & Thurrock Hospital & Peterborough & Stamford Hospital) and one count of Fraud by False Representation, contrary to Section 2 of the Fraud Act 2006 (in respect of employment at the Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead). Three other counts were left to lie on file which did not materially affect the value or severity of the frauds. The court later considered an application by Sharma to withdraw her guilty plea, but refused it.

3. The NHS Counter Fraud Service (NHS CFS) - a service of the NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) - was established to tackle fraud and corruption throughout the NHS and Department of Health whether it involves professionals, staff, patients or contractors. It aims to create a lasting anti-fraud culture.

4. Around 300 professionally-trained and accredited Local Counter Fraud Specialists are in place covering every health body in England and Wales.

5. The value of fraud and unlawful action identified in 2009/10 was £10,951,069.

6. In 2009-10 the NHS CFS successfully prosecuted 65 criminal cases.

7. To report any incident of suspected fraud in the NHS, please report online here.

Source:
NHS Counter Fraud Service