As the health sector focuses on prevention and earlier intervention, the same principles will be applied to counter fraud, ensuring risks are understood and prevented before they impact service delivery.
We will achieve this by:
- supporting fraud prevention principles to be embedded into the core foundations of models of healthcare and when fraud does occur, taking strong enforcement action
- supporting the health sector to strengthen resilience against fraud through identifying and addressing fraud vulnerabilities in high-risk areas
- ensuring a more robust response from health organisations on the failure to prevent fraud requirements from the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023
- pushing a counter fraud culture across the healthcare workforce by evidencing the impact of fraud on healthcare provision
- supporting organisations that have fallen victim to fraud to understand weaknesses, recover and drive sector-wide learning to prevent future occurrences
- driving deterrence messages through the sector
- creating counter fraud performance standards to enable meaningful benchmarking, supporting local and regional teams to develop credible and impactful counter fraud interventions
- building on counter fraud tools and frameworks to support sector maturity to reduce fraud, loss and error
Outcomes by 2029
This objective focuses on driving fraud prevention-focused system development, building and embedding workforce fraud awareness and capability, and enabling leaders to act early on emerging threats.
- health organisations are driven to adopt fraud prevention principles into the way they design services, make decisions, and manage counter fraud performance
- fraud prevention and robust response is an integral part of how the health system evolves and is designed, governed, and delivers healthcare services
- health services adopt counter fraud practices and safeguards, so that fraud is harder to commit
- leaders have clear sight of vulnerabilities and act early to address them
- the health workforce understands its role in protecting public resources
The result will be a more resilient, transparent, and financially sustainable NHS, where fewer opportunities for fraud exist and more resources are available for frontline patient care.