Improve your awareness of where fraudulent expense claims occur

Since the Fraud Act of 2006 came in to effect in January 2007 the NHS have been striving to reduce fraud across the whole organisation, which is reported to cost the service up to £2 billion every year, and create a lasting anti-fraud culture.

Research has shown that mileage is the highest single type of expense claim reimbursement, providing the biggest opportunity to falsify claims. If claimants are not forced to provide accurate details of the journeys they have undertaken, it is easy for them to over-estimate the distances travelled.

At 58.3p per mile, an over claim of just 5 miles per day equals £700 over paid per year, per employee.
(NHS Standard User Rate – Agenda for Change)

Recent paper claim form analysis has shown that for every £100 paid out on mileage £17.46 could be challenged as potentially fraudulent and that 73.61% of claims did not show sufficient data about locations visited to satisfy an audit.


With this in mind Software Europe are continuing to work closely with NHS customers to develop the expenses system to maximise the deterrence of fraudulent expense claiming and improve visibility and understanding of the NHS policies to NHS staff to help prevent fraud.

Expenses(NHS) has enhanced functionality to allow employees to enter multiple postcodes and locations visited throughout the course of their duties taken each day, with over 80% of journey legs over claimed by an average of 2.52 miles this functionality will make claiming more accurate and in turn reduce spend. When the claimant enters the journey information, the system automatically calculates the distance travelled, ensuring they are claiming the correct mileage, saving the claimant time in calculating totals. The claimant has the opportunity to overtype the suggested mileage to allow for any occurrences that could have altered this, for example road works and diversions, however these amendments will still be flagged to the line manager giving them the opportunity to check the journey more thoroughly. Again, this will ensure accurate mileage calculations and reduce spend.

What’s more, rules have been written into Expenses(NHS) to guarantee that if a claimant starts their journey from home, they only receive back the lesser amount of mileage should their base be closer to the destination. Also, additional mileage rules for Relocation, Excess mileage and Emergency Call Outs have been built into the system to ensure that all employees are claiming within policy.

How the home/location functionality works:

Step 1:

Home to Location A = 10 Miles
Office Base to Location A = 5 Miles
Claimable Mileage= 5 Miles
 

Step 2:

Location A to Location B = 8 Miles
Claimable Mileage = 8 Miles
 

Step 3:

Location B to Home = 9 Miles
Location B to Office = 2 Miles
Claimable Mileage = 2 Miles

Total Mileage Claimable = 15 Miles

Because claims are easier to check, line managers are more informed, and can be more vigilant when checking claims against diaries and authorising claims. This also provides a way to detect fraud quickly and a greater means to investigate potential fraud.

For further information please contact a member of the NHS Team at: nhs@software-europe.co.uk or by calling 01522 881300