A Nigerian student, Oluwabunmu Adeleiyi, has been jailed after defrauding the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) by working as a healthcare support worker using a false identity, a court has heard.
Adeleiyi, who lived in Canton, Cardiff, was in the UK on a student visa when she secured employment at Neath Port Talbot Hospital and the Caswell Clinic in Bridgend.
Cardiff Crown Court heard that Adeleiyi, along with two accomplices, used the same identification documents to bill the NHS approximately £16,000 a month through multiple employment agencies.
She pleaded guilty to four counts of fraud by false representation and was sentenced to 10 months’ imprisonment for each offence, to run concurrently and suspended for two years. She was also ordered to complete 100 hours of unpaid community service.
Two of the fraud counts related to work carried out at Neath Port Talbot Hospital, while the remaining two involved the Caswell Clinic, a medium secure mental health unit in Bridgend.
The fraud was uncovered when Adeleiyi signed out at the end of a night shift at the Caswell Clinic. A receptionist noticed that a passport photograph had been placed on an ID card kept in a plastic wallet. When challenged, Adeleiyi refused to hand over her shift documentation.
The matter was escalated to senior management at Swansea Bay University Health Board (SBUHB), which declared a critical incident.
An internal investigation revealed that staff had raised concerns about Adeleiyi’s “bizarre” behaviour during shifts, including locking herself alone in a ward room.
She was also found to have locked corridor doors that were not permitted to be locked, posing potential risks during fires or incidents involving violent patients.
Despite having no training in restraint techniques, Adeleiyi had access to confidential patient records and made entries in observation notes herself. Health officials told the court the risks involved “could have been catastrophic.”
The court heard that Adeleiyi had used the ID of a registered healthcare support worker who had fled the UK to Nigeria using a false passport.
Passing sentence, Judge Recorder Mark Powell KC said: “You put the patients at risk… you put staff at risk,” as reported by the BBC.
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