Birmingham care worker sentenced for £36k NHS fraud

A woman with no right to remain or work in the UK, who has been in the country for over a decade, has received a six month jail sentence, suspended for twelve months, for fraud against the NHS.

She earlier pleaded guilty to three charges relating to False Representation and Identity Cards Act offences.

The sentence follows an investigation by the NHS Counter Fraud Service.

Semone Welcome, 33, of Westbourne Road, Handsworth, Birmingham, arrived in the UK on a six month tourist visa in July 1999. She was employed as a Support Care Worker in the People with Learning Disabilities Directorate of South Birmingham PCT between October 2007 and June 2009, where she fraudently earned a total of £36,529.26.

Suspicions arose that she did not have the right to remain or work in the UK and that her National Insurance number was false, which the investigation confirmed. Enquiries with the UK Border Agency revealed that she had used false documentation to obtain her position at the Trust, which would otherwise not have employed her.

The investigation was conducted jointly by the West Midlands Regional Team of the NHS Counter Fraud Service, with the UK Border Agency Midland Intelligence Unit. Welcome was arrested at UK Border Agency offices in Solihull in February this year.

Malcolm Taylor, West Midlands Operational Fraud Manager for the NHS Counter Fraud Service, said: “This outcome is a reminder that as soon as the NHS Counter Fraud Service is alerted to a suspicion of fraud we will thoroughly follow it up, and wherever appropriate, we will press for prosecution. Others contemplating doing the same as Semone Welcome should be aware of the consequences”.

Welcome’s offences were fraud in relation to her application to remain in employment in the NHS and offences under the Identity Cards Act relating to the possession and use of a forged Home Office letter and passport visa in her Jamaican passport.