Fraud OO is struck off

An optometrist from Stockton on Tees who was sentenced to community service having been found guilty of making claims for patients who had died was struck off last week by the GOC.

Paul Richard Spratt of Spratt and Bentley Opticians had been sentenced to 150 hours of community service by Teeside Magistrates Court last November, having been found guilty on 10 charges of obtaining a money transfer from Middlesbrough Primary Care Trust by deception.

Chris Alder for the GOC said the offences involved claiming for testing eight nursing home patients who had died and supplying pairs of spectacles for two. The case was described as 'persistent dishonesty over a period of over a year for which there had been no satisfactory explanation'.