A MEDICAL boss who tried to cheat East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust out of more than £100,000 has been jailed for 15 months.

Sarfaraz Ali, 35, who ran Bradford-based UK Surgical, used to act as an agent for Abbott Vascular, supplying stents for heart surgery to the trust which runs Royal Blackburn and Burnley General hospitals.

But later Abbott, a Netherlands company, established its own UK division and dispensed with UK Surgical’s service. Letters were sent to its trading partners, advising them of the position, but the correspondence never reached the trust.

So in September 2009, when the procurement department at the trust wrongly sent out a batch of orders to the UK Surgical address, Ali took advantage.

Bradford Crown Court heard that he sent false invoices to the trust, along with his bank account details, which were then used for future orders.

In February 2010, a cardiac catheter laboratory was set to open at the trust, and an order of around £75,000 was placed to provide stock.

Prosecutors said that orders of £102,500 were placed with Abbot Vascular, but ended up being credited to Ali’s UK Surgical outfit.

Questioned repeatedly in August 2011, Ali denied any involvement, but an audit trail was discovered, show-ing money had been paid into his Royal Bank of Scotland account, and then passed through other acc-ounts, in a bid to disguise the fraud.

Ali, of Milton Place, Hal-ifax, who was convicted of 14 fraud offences, including submitting false invoices and money laundering, will now also face a Proceeds of Crime Act app-lication in October. Judge Peter Benson told him: “You’re an intelligent man and knew the workings of the payment system within the NHS. You readily took advantage of those wind-falls to feather your own nest.”

Speaking after the case, David Hall, of counter-fraud agency NHS Protect, said: “In this instance, unfortunately, a fraudulent change of payment details instruction was not spotted in time, but our investigators have helped chase after the lost NHS funds.”