National Fraud Initiative 2022
NHS Professionals will again be participating in this year’s National Fraud Initiative (NFI). The NFI is a sophisticated data matching exercise run by the Cabinet Office which matches electronic data within and between participating bodies to prevent and detect fraudulent and erroneous payments from the public purse. Participants include NHS bodies, local authorities, government departments, and other agencies, and some private sector organisations.
The National Fraud Initiative has enabled participating organisations to prevent and detect over £245m million in fraud and error in the period 1st April 2018 to 4th April 2020.
The types of frauds and errors previously identified by the NFI in the NHS include:
- NHS employees with no right to work or reside in the UK
- Employees working elsewhere whilst on sick leave
- NHS workers fraudulently claiming housing and council tax benefits
- Occupational pension payments are paid to deceased pensioners several years after their death.
Data matching involves comparing sets of data, such as payroll or benefits records of a body, against other records held by the same or another body and allows potentially fraudulent claims and payments to be identified and investigated. The exercise is run every two years.
The data is processed in accordance with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation 2018 and the Code of Data Matching Practice 2008 and is carried out by the Cabinet Office under the statutory powers conferred upon the Minister of the Cabinet Office by Part 6 of the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014. Full details of the legal basis are available by clicking here.
Full information and details regarding the initiative can be found by clicking here.