26.01.15
Investigation into allegations of fraud at Broadmoor trust
An investigation has been launched into allegations of fraud and overspending at West London Mental Health NHS Trust.
The trust, which runs the Broadmoor high-security hospital, said it had called in independent investigators to look at "historic management of finances relating to capital projects”.
“That investigation is seeking to determine if there were projects that in fact overspent, the scale of any overspends, and whether any of the projects were continued despite being unfunded and/or unauthorised and if so, how that occurred,” the trust said.
A report from the Independent on Sunday claimed that there had been a £4m overspend in capital estates and facilities but the trust released a statement strongly denying the allegations.
“Very early in the financial year the trust identified a potential overspend of £3.9m on the capital budget for the whole trust (i.e. not just Broadmoor),” the statement read. “As a result of identifying this risk, the trust acted swiftly to understand and rectify this. We can confirm that we are not forecasting an overspend for this financial year.”
It continued: “The article goes on to inaccurately cite overspends on a number of schemes including £1.5m on the Lammas Centre, which the trust was planning to develop into a recovery house to support service users in the community.
“The project to build recovery houses in Ealing and the other London boroughs we serve has not been scrapped. For reasons unrelated to finance, the Lammas Centre was judged unsuitable and we are working with Rethink, our third sector partner, and Ealing Council to open a recovery house in Ealing in a different location. This project is well advanced and we hope to open a recovery house in Ealing early in the summer.”
It added that a number of other projects mentioned in the Independent report are subject to the independent investigation currently underway and the trust could not comment on them.
“We are unable to comment in detail on the investigation while it is on-going. However, we can assure the public that the trust takes its duty to spend taxpayer money on priorities that make a difference to patient care very seriously. The investigation will be full and impartial, and will interview all those involved in the management of the department at that time.
“The trust board will take any appropriate actions as recommended in the final report.”
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