Solihull psychiatrist made £16,000 from seeing private patients while off sick

A Solihull psychiatrist defrauded the NHS out of £16,000 by carrying out private work while off sick – and by using his own hospital for consultations.

Nawshad Suleman, 65, was sentenced to 12 months in prison, suspended for two years, after admitting two counts of fraud.

The consultant, of Beaminster Road, was also ordered to carry out 150 hours unpaid community work after committing the fraud while working at St Michael’s psychiatric hospital in Warwick.

The disgraced medic has now repaid the £16,074 he made from his dishonesty and was also ordered to pay £2,800 costs.

From April 2013 he was repeatedly declared unfit for work because of stress, receiving a total of £13,331 in sick pay – but it was later discovered he was undertaking privately paid consultations, including providing reports for a company called Premex on patients referred to him.

Warwick Crown Court prosecutor Elizabeth Power said Suleman had worked as a consultant psychiatrist with Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust since 2000. Yet, as well as Premex, he had also worked for a second private firm while off sick.

She said: “He was also engaged to carry out work as an expert for Speed Medical Services Ltd and was paid on a daily rate when he claimed to be too ill to work.”

An investigation found between January 2012 and April 2013 he had undertaken private consultations using facilities at St Michael’s on 16 occasions – at a time when he should have been doing NHS Trust work.

In doing so and not declaring it, Suleman also defrauded the Trust out of the £2,742 he should have paid for the use of his consulting room for private work.

Marios Lambis, defending, handed in a large number of character references, adding Suleman had undertaken much charitable work during his career.

But sentencing Suleman, Recorder Kevin Hegarty told him: “You have now lost your good name and you have brought shame on you and your family by virtue of your dishonesty.

“The Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, like all hospital trusts and many other employers who engage professional people, rely on them to get on with their work and to do it in an honest way.

“They cannot be checking up on people in high positions all the time, they have to trust them. You let your judgement lapse and put the prospect of getting a few extra pounds before honesty and before your good name.”

Read more: http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/crooked-solihull-psychiatrist-made-16k-11322267