KINGSTON DOCTOR STRUCK OFF AFTER STEALING £45.000 DURING PANDEMIC
A doctor has been struck off after stealing £45,000 from Kingston Hospital during the Covid pandemic, it was announced today.
Kifayat Ullah falsely claimed wages for hours he had not worked while he was an agency doctor at the hospital.
Dr Ullah used up to 28 forged timesheets to falsely claim he had worked 658 extra hours between November 2020 and June 2021 and was overpaid by £45,402, which resulted in Kingston Hospital NHS Foundation Trust losing £51,982 including agency fees.
He can no longer work as a doctor after the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) struck his name from the medical register, after they found his fitness to practise was impaired due to his conviction which was handed out in January, according to the website Surrey Live.
Dr Ullah specialised in ear, nose and throat services was contracted through recruitment agency MedicsPro.
He forged signatures of managers on the timesheets to claim for the hours he had not worked. He admitted making a false instrument with the intention of it being accepted as genuine at Wimbledon Magistrates’ Court on December 5, 2023.
She said he “defrauded the NHS trust out of money which could have been directed… towards patient care and services, or towards paying a member of staff” to provide the care he was being paid for but not carrying out. She added his actions showed an “extraordinary sense of entitlement” and that he had “breached the trust of the public, his employers and NHS colleagues”.
Dr Ullah was sentenced to 24 months imprisonment suspended for 24 months at Kingston Crown Court on January 8, 2024. He was told to pay compensation of £51,902 and a victim surcharge of £156, along with carrying out 250 hours of unpaid work and a rehabilitation activity for 25 days. He has since paid the compensation, victim surcharge and prosecution costs of around £5,000.
The judge, sentencing Mr Ullah, said his actions were motivated by greed. He added: “It seems to me also of relevance is this was misuse of public funds. It was over a period of about seven months and everyone who reads the news or watches the news will know that the one organisation that cannot afford to lose large sums of money is the NHS because monies which are wrongly taken from that organisation is depriving those monies from going towards caring for the people of this country.”
