Essex IT manager pleads guilty to £800,000 NHS fraud Published:
01 Jun 2021 A former NHS employee has pleaded guilty for defrauding the health service of over £800,000 by claiming he was procuring non-existent services from companies he controlled.
Barry David Stannard was head of unified communication at Mid Essex Hospital Trust (MEHT) when he committed the offences, which went on for seven years.
The former senior IT manager pleaded guilty to four offences last Wednesday (26 May 2021) at Chelmsford Crown Court, two charges of fraud by false representation and two charges of cheating the public revenue.
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Concerns first arose after the trust ran a data matching exercise on its payroll and accounts payable records alongside Companies House records.
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A former IT manager has admitted defrauding the hospital where he worked out of £800,000. Barry Stannard, 53, had been head of unified communications at the Mid Essex Hospital Trust at Broomfield Hospital at the time of the offences. An investigation found Stannard, who is from Chelmsford, had stolen a total of £806,229.80 between 2012 and 2019. Concerns were first raised when the trust, which has now merged with hospitals in south Essex, ran a data matching exercise on its payroll and accounts payable records. An investigation was launched by the Local Counter Fraud Specialist provider (RSM) before it was escalated to the national team at the NHS Counter Fraud Authority.