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A pharmacy owner and a colleague in his wholesale business have been found guilty of fraud involving falsified NHS prescriptions and the illegal sale of cancer drugs to European wholesalers, causing a £1.3m loss to the NHS.

Jignesh Patel and Rahil Patel, both with London addresses, were yesterday (October 6) found guilty on three counts of fraud by false representation and two of converting criminal property following a three-week trial at Southwark Crown Court.

Jignesh Patel owns Wise Pharmacy in Edmonton, as well as Actipharm Limited, a wholesale business. Rahil Patel acted as the responsible person at Actipharm during the relevant time. 

Analysis of prescriptions dispensed between May 2015 and November 17 showed the pharmacy claimed reimbursement for dispensing seven high-cost medications that are more commonly dispensed in hospitals, including Sprycel, Noxafil, Atripla, Eviplera and Truvada.

Leukaemia drugs Noxafil and Sprycel were the medicines that caused the largest losses to the NHS. To obtain them, community pharmacists must be able to identify a legitimate clinical need. 

A 2016 NHS England alert notified North London pharmacies that they would be unlikely to have to dispense these drugs and that they should contact GPs to confirm authenticity if they received a prescription for any of them.

Payment for the prescriptions came from Barnet, Enfield, Newham, and Tower Hamlets clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), with a CCG-led investigation revealing “there was no documentation to support the patient’s need for the drug, or that it had been prescribed,” the NHS Counter Fraud Authority (NHSCFA) said.

The NHSCFA’s analysis showed that the pharmacy claimed for 1,639 false prescriptions for 440 patients, dispensing 6,983 items against these.

On December 6, 2017, Jignesh Patel was arrested and gave a ‘no comment’ interview. His property was searched, with pictures of computers and mobile phones taken and £190,000 in cash seized.

Police also interviewed the GPs named on the prescriptions, who confirmed they had been falsified.

Further investigation revealed that Actipharm was selling Noxafil and Sprycel to wholesalers in Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany, with Wise Pharmacy using false prescriptions to obtain the medicines from the manufacturer. The total value of medicines sold in this manner was £779,405.

Although Wise Pharmacy stopped claiming NHS reimbursement for Noxafil and Sprycel following the NHSE alert in 2016, it carried on using NHS prescriptions to purchase the medicines.

“The amount not claimed back was identified by the investigation as £27,000 for Sprycel and £474,300 for Noxafil,” said the NHSCFA.

It added: “The investigation established that Actipharm was selling Sprycel and Noxafil to other wholesale companies despite not having purchased them, meaning they could only have been obtained through Wise Pharmacy.”

Rahil Patel was interviewed under caution on 14 February 2020, also answering no comment to all questions put to him.

Text messages exchanged between the pair were used as evidence in the trial, including ones saying “Drop the nox to the warehouse today” and “U WANT MORE Sprycel N NOXA let me know asap”.

The two men are due to be sentenced on Friday October 16. Details of forthcoming confiscation proceedings are also expected to be revealed on that date.

Ben Harrison, head of operations and engagement at the NHSCFA, said: "Our expert investigation team followed the evidence, both in the UK and Europe, to bring these individuals to justice. This case demonstrates that there is no hiding place for those who seek to defraud the NHS.

"Jignesh Patel and Rahil Patel worked together for several years, obtaining drugs using false prescriptions and selling them on to European pharmaceutical wholesale businesses.

"We will actively pursue any criminals that seek to defraud the NHS of vital funds and every pound stolen from the NHS is a pound that cannot be spent on frontline services, and the NHSCFA is committed to pursuing those responsible.”

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