NHS signs up SAS in fight against fraud

The NHS' fraud-busting unit has embarked on one of its biggest ever IT projects as part of its continued crackdown on the millions of pounds lost through fraud in the health service each year.

The NHS Counter Fraud Service (CFS) will use software from SAS for predictive data analysis which can indicate where fraud is most likely to occur and detect previously hidden trends in the data.

Using the same techniques banks use to spot fraudulent activity on credit cards, the software will also be able to analyse payments across the NHS and raise alerts for unusual activity, which can then be investigated by NHS counter-fraud specialists.

Tony Church, head of information systems at NHS CFS, told silicon.com the software will cover most of the large national NHS databases for both patients and employees.

He said: "It can monitor large data sets for fraudulent activity. You can ask the data any question."

The SAS Intelligence Platform will also be able to report on security incidents, such as violence against A&E staff, and pick out repeat offenders who wouldn't otherwise have been spotted because they give false information about their identity and address.

The system is expected to be fully operational by 1 April this year and Church said even if it only helps tackle 0.01 per cent of NHS fraud it will still save "millions".

Dermit McCausland, MD of NHS CFS, added in a statement: "This software will give the NHS an up-to-the-minute, cutting-edge capacity to detect and stop fraud."

The NHS CFS claims to have saved the health service more than £800m in fraud detection since 1999 and government figures released last August show overall patient fraud - such as prescription fraud - losses have been cut by 56 per cent to £76m.