Practitioners urged to help uncover fraud

Tougher checks on payments to contracted health professionals including optical outlets have been introduced as part of new measures to tackle fraud.

Speaking to Optician in the run up to October's NHS fraud awareness month, Rosie Gavzey, specialist optical fraud adviser to the NHS Counter Fraud and Security Management Service, explained how the NHS had been catching practitioners committing fraud.

'Post payment verification is much stricter than before,' she said.

Gavzey also urged practitioners to report fraud committed by colleagues or other practices and called on all optical outlets to help clamp down on patient fraud by ensuring they conduct strict point-of-sale checks to ensure those claiming exemptions are entitled to them.