An NHS employee who used a fake job reference has been sentenced to six months imprisonment, suspended for two years.
Elaine Fiander, 51, from Gloucestershire provided a false reference to get her job as smoking cessation adviser at Gloucestershire Care Services NHS Trust (GCS). Had the trust been given the facts about her previous work history, it would not have offered her the post. Therefore all of her earnings in the job count as fraud.
Fiander pleaded guilty to charges of fraud and has already had to repay GCS £20,300.
She had previously worked in a similar role at Public Health Wales, but the relationship with that employer had broken down after a period of long-term sick leave, and she admitted in court that her previous job had been “fraught with difficulties”.
She fabricated a fake job reference “out of complete and utter desperation” as she knew that she would not get the new job if she used a genuine reference from Public Health Wales. She made up two references, but it was later revealed that neither of the two had ever worked at Public Health Wales.
Lee Sheridan, local counter fraud specialist at Gloucestershire Shared Service for NHS, said: “One has some sympathy for anybody who feels desperate. However, the public rightly expects people going for NHS jobs, which are positions of trust and responsibility, to be entirely honest in their applications. This sentence will help deter others from defrauding GCS and the wider NHS.”
