A practice manager who defrauded her employer of £150,000 has been sentenced to 18 months in prison.
Alison Westley, 62, has been convicted for inflating her own salary by creating fake invoices for the supply of goods and services, including drug supplies.
In one week Wesley was found to have diverted up to £3,000 a week from practice funds, at the peak of her offending.
Further investigations revealed Westley had been consistently been paying herself an inflated salary and extra overtime, as well as drawing cheques made payable to herself from practice accounts.
Westley had worked for 12 years as a practice manager in Manchester, but when her practice was subject to a merge her new colleagues discovered the fraud.
Supported by Stockport PCT, Greater Manchester Police and NHS Protect, an organization which aims to identify fraud and Stockport PCT, a full financial investigation found Westley’s offences had cost the practice £150,000.
She was arrested in September 2012 and pleaded guilty in March 2013 to seven offences of False Representation, contrary to section two of the Fraud Act 2006.
Pauline Smith, North West Area Anti-Fraud Specialist, NHS Protect, said : “Alison Westley stole a huge amount of money and her crime put at risk the ability of these practices to provide NHS care to local people.
“Westley’s custodial sentence should act as a warning to those who intend to defraud the health system.”
