An Indian-origin pharmacist and his employee have each been sentenced to six years’ imprisonment over an NHS prescription fraud worth an estimated 1.3 million pounds.
The Patels, who are not related, were both found guilty of three counts of fraud by false representation and two counts of converting criminal property. The evidence linked drugs obtained by Wise Pharmacy through false prescriptions to their subsequent sale by Actipharm to European wholesalers. In the UK, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) regulates the distribution of drugs and requires wholesale businesses such as Actipharm to employ a Responsible Person (RP). An RP is responsible for ensuring that the conditions under which a licence was granted have been, and are being, complied with. “At the time of these offences, the RPs for Actipharm were Jignesh Patel and Rahil Patel.
Jignesh Patel, 46, and Rahil Patel, 42, were sentenced last week following a three-week trial at Southwark Crown Court. In March 2020, Danish police, assisted by NHSCFA, attended a Copenhagen wholesaler. Jignesh Patel was arrested on December 6, 2017, and 190,000 pounds in cash was seized during a search of his property.
“This was committed out of greed, and you were equal partners in the serious fraud designed to make you a lot of money,” Justice Cole said at the sentencing hearing last Friday. As Responsible Persons for Actipharm Ltd, they were responsible for accurate record-keeping and had knowledge of where the pharmaceutical drugs were obtained from and which companies they were sold to,” the NHSCFA said.
“Jignesh Patel and Rahil Patel worked together for several years, obtaining drugs using false prescriptions and selling them on to European pharmaceutical wholesale businesses,” said Ben Harrison, Head of Operations and Engagement at the NHSCFA.
These checks identified that there was no documentation to support the patients’ clinical need for the drugs and confirmed they had not been prescribed. The GPs named as prescribers were interviewed and confirmed that they had not issued the prescriptions, the NHSCFA said. The National Health Service said the NHS Counter Fraud Authority (NHSCFA) investigators will now use their powers under the UK Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (POCA) to recover these lost funds. The NHSCFA obtained all the prescriptions dispensed by Patel’s pharmacy for the period January 2015 to November 2017. Examination of these prescriptions identified 1,639 false prescriptions in the names of 24 GPs for 440 individual patients and 6,983 dispensed items. Evidence from European wholesalers was obtained through European Investigation Orders (EIOs) submitted by the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to prosecutors in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium in November 2018. In May 2019, NHSCFA presented the investigation and its evidential requirements to German authorities at Eurojust in The Hague. Rahil Patel was interviewed under caution on February 14, 2020, and text messages between him and Jignesh regarding the purchase of false prescriptions and drugs formed part of the evidence at their trial this month.
“Our expert investigation team followed the evidence, both in the UK and Europe, to bring these individuals to justice. As a pharmacist who owns Wise Pharmacy in north London and a pharmaceutical wholesale business called Actipharm Limited, Jignesh Patel came under the NHSCFA radar for dispensing high-cost drugs, normally only issued in a hospital environment. Following anomalies in the expected prescribing data, NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups obtained copies of the prescriptions and checked them with the named general practitioners (GPs). Enquiries by the Local Counter Fraud Specialist (LCFS) identified seven high-cost medicines being dispensed by Wise Pharmacy which would not normally be expected in primary care. The drugs were Sprycel, Noxafil, Atripla, Eviplera, Tobramycin, Truvada and Viread.
“This was a thoroughly impressive investigation, expertly presented on all sides,” he said. This case demonstrates that there is no hiding place for those who seek to defraud the NHS,” he said. “We will actively pursue any criminals that seek to defraud the NHS of vital funds and every pound stolen from the NHS is a pound that cannot be spent on frontline services, and the NHSCFA is committed to pursuing those responsible,” he added. “The reimbursement value for the drugs listed on the false prescriptions paid by the NHS to Wise Pharmacy was in excess of £1.3 million,” it stated. “The investigation established that Actipharm was selling Sprycel and Noxafil to other wholesale companies despite not having purchased them, meaning they could only have been obtained through Wise Pharmacy,” it added.
