Fraud unfortunately can happen in the NHS and the practice has a responsibility to have measures in place to reduce the risk of misuse of public funds. When you register as a patient we will ask for photographic evidence of your identity (e.g. a driving licence) and may also ask for proof of your address.
We will also ask all patients aged 16 to 60 for evidence of entitlement to free prescriptions (e.g. a valid in date pre-payment card or certificate, medical exemption, student exemption etc).
Any reports we write (e.g. for benefits, insurance, holiday cancellation, fitness for work) will reflect the information in our notes. If you need us to complete one of these forms it is always useful to discuss this with us or summarise the situation so that we can provide full and factually correct information. This is especially useful for holiday cancellation forms when we need to know the date any insurance was taken out, the date the holiday was booked and the date the holiday was cancelled as none of this information will be in your notes unless you have told us.
If we suspect a patient may be attempting to defraud the NHS or another organisation we will report this to the appropriate counter fraud bodies and possibly to the police.