Health board trying to pull £800k back from dentists

A SCOTTISH health board is trying to claw back more than £800,000 wrongly paid to dentists, The Scotsman can reveal.

NHS Lothian is owed 801,572, more than the total amount that was recovered from dentists across the whole of Scotland over the past 15 years.

The health board has refused to reveal details of why such a huge sum had to be recouped but the body responsible for processing dentists' fees said most overpayments were due to "misinterpretation of the fees and regulations".

The figure was released only after the health board was ordered to do so by the Scottish Information Commissioner.

NHS National Services Scotland (NHS NSS), which is responsible for processing fees awarded to NHS dentists, admitted the figure was a "higher sum than we would normally be expected to recover". But it refused to reveal how much it was trying to claim back in total for boards across Scotland.

The 800,000 being sought on behalf of NHS Lothian is particularly large given that in the past 12 years, NHS NSS has successfully clawed back just 768,000 for the whole of Scotland.

Opposition parties expressed concern about the huge sum NHS Lothian was trying to get back at a time of job cuts.

The Scotsman first used Freedom of Information legislation more than two years ago to ask NHS Lothian to reveal details of suspected wrongful payments made to dentists and what efforts were being made to recoup them. The board refused to release the figures, leading to an appeal to the Scottish Information Commissioner.

After an inquiry, the commissioner upheld that NHS Lothian should reveal the total amount it was attempting to reclaim from dentists, but stopped short of ordering the board to reveal other details about the cases.

Earlier this month it emerged that Scottish dentists were being paid millions of pounds for patients who were dead or registered with other practices. NHS NSS and NHS Lothian has refused to discuss details of why 800,000 is being reclaimed, but said it did not relate to the issue of dead patients.

An NHS NSS spokeswoman said: "NHS boards continue to work closely with NHS NSS, to monitor all payments. We also work with the counter-fraud service when appropriate. In most cases, overpayments are simply due to a misinterpretation of the fees and regulations."

Jackie Baillie, Scottish Labour's health spokeswoman, said: "This is money that could have been used to protect nurses' jobs and the health board needs to explain what has gone wrong."

Mike Pringle, Liberal Democrat MSP for Edinburgh South, said: "This is an astonishingly large sum of money.With the health board having to consider cutting the number of nurses, I hope every effort is being made to claw back all money owed."

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: "The types of cases involving over-claims vary from year to year, so the amount of recoveries made is also variable.

"Ministers expect recoveries to be pursued as part of their overall aim of ensuring NHS funding is targeted appropriately."