Practitioners charged with £5k NHS fraud

A dispensing optician and an optical medical practitioner (OMP) appeared at Hastings Magistrates Court last week charged with making fraudulent claims to the NHS after a lengthy joint police and NHS Counter Fraud Service investigation.

Iqbal Nabi, who is under an 18-month interim suspension order from the General Optical Council (News 08.01.10), was joint owner of New Global Vision in Hastings and was charged along with OMP Dr Helen James. They will now face a Crown Court hearing on May 16. Sussex Police stated that the charges related to a number of fraudulent NHS-funded sight tests carried out at New Global Vision between January and October 2009 in which the NHS was charged for eye tests that were not carried out and for glasses and contact lenses with incorrect prescriptions, often when patients did not need them.