Nurse faked timesheets to pocket £26k in wages

Francesca Del-Greco admitted the deception after being confronted by an investigator

A "dishonest" nurse who submitted fake timesheets for 77 shifts she never worked and pocketed £26,000 in wages has been permanently banned from the profession.

Francesca Del-Greco was struck off the nursing register for gross misconduct after a Nursing and Midwifery Council hearing.

Ms Del-Greco worked for an agency and was deployed to a hospital in Blackpool when she made the false claims, the disciplinary panel heard.

Altrix Nursing Agency, which employed Ms Del-Greco, ended up footing the bill as her deception came to light before the hospital had paid an invoice.

'Systematic dishonesty'

The panel said in a written ruling that her "systematic" dishonesty came to light when the agency discovered "discrepancies" in timesheets submitted between October 2021 and February 2022

Suspicion was heightened further when managers at Altrix were unable to recognise the signatures on those timesheets.

Ms Del-Greco was asked about the shifts in question on 2 March, 2022, but offered a series of false explanations.

A counter fraud specialist working for Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust conducted an investigation, and could find no trace of Ms Del-Greco working at the hospital on 77 of the shifts in question.

When confronted by the investigator and interviewed, she admitted she had submitted the timesheets for shifts she never worked.

She told investigators she had spent all the money but had offered to repay the agency at £200 per month, although some of those payments were missed.

The panel heard the hospital believed fraud had been committed, but because they had not yet paid the agency the matter was not referred to the Crown Prosecution Service.

The ruling said Ms Del Greco had "engaged in a premedicated, systematic, and longstanding deception".

"Her dishonesty was repeated and sustained," it added.

The panel concluded Miss Del-Greco’s "actions and dishonest conduct is fundamentally incompatible" with her being able to stay on the nursing register.

Ms Del-Greco had stopped working as a nurse and did not attend the hearing.