Suffolk County Council recovers over £500,000 in overpayments using NFI Mortality Screening

The National Fraud Initiative, run by the Cabinet Office, helps Suffolk County Council identify overpayments to private residential care homes relating to residents that had previously passed away, but the home had delayed notifying the Council.

Suffolk County Council now use ReCheck, another successful National Fraud Initiative fraud detection product, every six months to proactively identify and stop these overpayments. Just under £600,000 has been recovered so far.

SITUATION

Suffolk County Council is the administrative authority for the county of Suffolk and is split into five distinct directorates. Each directorate has responsibility for a range of services and statutory requirements such as: adult social care, children’s social care and public health, fire services and public safety, highways and infrastructure and professional services. The council takes part in the two yearly National Fraud Initiative (NFI) data matching exercise run by the Cabinet Office. This fraud prevention and detection exercise helps local authorities, such as Suffolk County Council, find and tackle fraud in the public sector and protect vital public services.

The NFI enables Suffolk County Council to identify payments to private care homes for residents that had previously passed away. It is important for the council to identify and stop these payments before they impact departmental funding and public services.

SOLUTION

ReCheck, from the Cabinet Office allows organisations to repeat the two yearly matching at a time to suit them. This allows for more frequent checks against data sets collected as part of the NFI to reduce fraud and error.

Suffolk County Council has used Recheck to identify inconsistencies in data, which may be indicative of fraud, overpayment or error. This has enabled them to invest in and strengthen the contract management arrangements in place with residential care homes, which has resulted a significant reduction in the level of overpayments being made.

In addition, the Council now uses ReCheck every six months to perform proactive data matching, to ensure that payments are not continuing after the death of a resident.

RESULTS

£571,000 OF OVERPAYMENTS IDENTIFIED

To private care homes for residents that had previously passed away.

RETURN ON INVESTMENT

Achieved for Suffolk County Council from the first match, after using ReCheck.

REDUCTION IN OVERPAYMENTS

Ability to identify where controls and procedures could be improved. This has resulted in an overall reduction in overpayments in this area.

BETTER PRIORITISATION

The matches were presented in a user friendly format with clear information to help with prioritisation of cases and workload.

ONGOING ASSESSMENT

ReCheck is used proactively every six months to continue to prevent and detect fraud, overpayments or error.

MAXIMUM FLEXIBILITY

The council can now carry out checks using ReCheck, instantaneously, at any time.

A spokesperson from the Internal Audit Team at Suffolk County Council said:

“ReCheck is a flexible system that enables us to check against any of the NFI data sets, at a time that suits us, to provide an ongoing screening of our current customers. ReCheck is a simple, cost-effective way to spot cases of fraud or error that are of particular concern.”

If you would like more information about ReCheck and how it can protect your organisation from fraud and overpayments please get in touch:

Cabinet Office:nfiqueries@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Synectics Solutions, Public Sector Services Team:

Tel: 0845 3458019

Email: helpdesk@nfi.gov.uk