A lawyer was able to defraud the health service of almost £280,000 because officials failed to carry out the most basic financial checks, an investigation found today.
Northern Ireland solicitor George Brangam managed to siphon off the hospital funds over a period of seven years as no one bothered to check his dealings, according to a Stormont investigation.
NHS accountants did not scrutinise bills Mr Brangam sent health trusts because he was a former colleague, the Public Accounts Committee said.
The lawyer, who is now dead, defrauded six health trusts in Northern Ireland on medical negligence cases from 1999 to 2006.
He would invoice them for sums well above the size of the actual compensation settlements then keep the difference, making up to £75,000 at a time.
He conducted the fraud despite already being paid around £7 million in legal fees from the NHS from 1996 to 2006.
The health service has subsequently recovered the £277,652 taken in the scam.
Mr Brangam’s firm - Brangam, Bagnall and Co - was closed down by the Law Society when the fraud was uncovered in 2006. No other lawyers working at the firm were involved in fraudulent activity.
PAC chair Paul Maskey said the fact Mr Brangam had previously worked in the NHS’s Central Services Agency (CSA) as director of legal services meant he knew how to pinpoint the weakness in its accounting.
He said he was shocked basic questions weren’t asked, such as why the lawyer requested that cheques be made out in his name and not the name of the compensation claimant.
“From our investigations, it was evident that the Health Bodies had dispensed with even the most basic of payment checks because they were working with a professional, a professional who had previously been one of their colleagues,” said the Sinn Fein MLA.
The committee expressed disappointment that regular inspections by the the Law Society had failed to detect anything untoward in Mr Brangam’s dealings, which were finally discovered by a junior clerical worker in the Causeway hospital trust in Co Antrim.
The committee’s investigation follows an inquiry by Northern Ireland’s auditor-general last year. Criminal proceedings taken against Mr Brangam ended upon his death in August 2007.
PA