A SWINDLING Bradford doctor has been ordered to pay back more than £11,000 of his ill-gotten gains in compensation to the National Health Service.
Dr Shahrad Arya, a locum at Bradford Royal Infirmary, was jailed for eight months in August last year for fleecing Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust out of £13,416 by submitting false timesheets. Yesterday, a confiscation hearing under the Proceeds of Crime Act ruled that his available assets were £11,271.
Bradford Crown Court heard that the money was already the subject of a restraint order. Arya, who was not in court for the hearing, forged consultants’ signatures in the fraud that cost almost £35,000 in wrongfully paid wages and investigation costs.
He pleaded guilty to seven charges of falsely claiming he was working shifts at St Luke’s Hospital, Bradford, and Bradford Royal Infirmary, while he was on the books of Medacs Healthcare recruitment agency.
He was a locum senior house officer, specialising in trauma and orthopaedics, when he falsified timesheets between February and April, 2013, including claiming for bank holidays when another doctor was on call.
Arya, 42, of Pagers Lane, Uxbridge, Middlesex, forged the signatures of three consultants on timesheets he submitted to Medacs Healthcare. The agency was then paid out by the NHS Trust.
Arya was caught out when it was noted he had not been seen at many of the “on call” handover team meetings at the hospital.
He fleeced the Trust out of £13,416 and the investigation cost £21,400.
Arya is no longer registered with the General Medical Council and will never practise again in the UK or the United States.
Judge Colin Burn, who jailed Arya, said he had betrayed the trust placed in doctors. He said: “It is taxpayers’ money and the public are expecting the highest standards from their doctors.”
After the case, a spokesman for Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said: “It is simply not acceptable for anyone to defraud the NHS and it should not be tolerated.”
