TikTok star ear surgeon is struck off after swindling the NHS out of £52,000 to send his daughters to private school
A TikTok star ear surgeon, with an extraordinary sense of entitlement, has been struck off after he swindled the NHS out of almost £52,000 so he could send his daughters to private school.
A TikTok star ear surgeon, with an extraordinary sense of entitlement, has been struck off after he swindled the NHS out of almost £52,000 so he could send his daughters to private school.
Dr Kifayat Ullah, 41, who calls himself the Ear Doctor on TikTok forged work timesheets claiming he was working 45 hours a week during the Covid-19 pandemic - when in fact he was doing just 22.5.
The married father of two, who drove an Aston Martin with a personalised plate and was pictured on social media taking exotic holidays, said he needed cash to pay future school fees but refused to take out a loan due to cultural issues.
Ullah, of Hampstead, North London, who was working as a locum specialising in ENT at Kingston Hospital, was reported to police after NHS fraud investigators discovered he had submitted 27 fraudulent timesheets - purportedly authorised by a health manager - recording an additional 658 hours which he never worked.
He initially tried to cover up his wrongdoing and even tried to deflect the blame on colleagues but eventually admitted: I want to express my profound remorse for the forgery of timesheets.
Dr Kifayat Ullah, 41, who calls himself the Ear Doctor on TikTok forged work timesheets claiming he was working 45 hours a week during the Covid-19 pandemic - when in fact he was doing just 22.5
The married father of two was pictured on social media taking exotic holidays
Ullah with his wife on holiday in India at the Taj Mahal
Ullah drove an Aston Martin with a personalised plate
I fully acknowledge the seriousness of my offence and the harm it has caused to the trust, its staff, patients, and the wider NHS community. I take full responsibility for my actions and the consequences they have brought upon myself and others.
At the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service, Ullahs name was ordered to be erased from the doctors register after he was found guilty of serious professional misconduct. Last January he was sentenced to 24 months jail suspended for two years, required to complete 250 hours unpaid work and pay compensation of £51,902.50 after he admitted using a false instrument.
He has since repaid all the stolen money.
Ullah posts regularly videos on TikTok of his private work as The Ear Doctor, where he charges up to £170 for emergency call-outs, and also flaunts his affluent lifestyle which included a video of a stay in a £1,250-a-night treehouse in Hampshire with his family.
The Manchester hearing was told the fraud occurred after he was contracted through the medical recruitment agency MedicsPro to work at Kingston. After his shifts Dr Ullah who was paid £69 an hour was required to complete handwritten paper timesheets on which he recorded the dates and the hours that he worked.
These were then signed off by the hospital and sent to MedicsPro who then made payment to him. But inquiries began after suspicions were raised about timesheets Ullah submitted between November 2020 and June 2021. It emerged he had scanned in the handwritten timesheets and then amended them using Microsoft Paint by copying and pasting signatures from colleagues.
Inquiries revealed an overpayment to him of £45,402, the total loss to the Trust being £51,982 as the agency unwittingly took its cut. When confronted he falsely claimed a manager said he could work 22.5 hours but be paid for 45.
For the General Medical Council Ms Jade Bucklow said: Dr Ullahs dishonesty lies at the higher end of probity and concerns forging timesheets in order to defraud the NHS of a huge sum of money over a period of seven months. His dishonesty took place during the COVID-19 pandemic when the NHS was crippled in terms of its resources, both financially and in terms of its staff and patient waiting times.
One of many TikTok posts from specialist Dr Kifayat Ullah, 40, on his Ear Doctor social feed
A hot tub can be seen in one video on Dr Ullahs social media, where he promotes himself
Ullah, of Hampstead, North London was working as a locum specialising in ENT at Kingston Hospital
He was reported to police after NHS fraud investigators discovered he had submitted 27 fraudulent timesheets - purportedly authorised by a health manager - recording an additional 658 hours which he never worked
He defrauded the NHS Trust out of money which could have been directed directly towards patient care and services, or towards paying a member of staff who was actually going to be present full-time, providing care that Dr Ullah was being paid for but was not carrying out. He did not just add a few hours here and there. He quite literally doubled the amount of work and inflated it.
The amount that Dr Ullah defrauded the NHS out of was limited only because he was caught and not because he decided to stop what he was doing. Despite his representations about financial need, he was a high earner at the time.
And it was clear Dr Ullah did not have insight during the investigation by the NHS. He provided two statements that were not only a denial of the allegations against him but contained further mistruths. He implicated another member of staff at the Trust which could have had profound consequences for him and indeed the other managers.
She added: Dr Ullah appears at times to be very focused on the needs of himself and his family rather than the wider public. His stressors were no different to the life stressors that many doctors face day-to-day.
He did not exhaust all the other financial options available to him. When asked about why he did not take a loan Dr Ullah said that he and his family did not like debt. It is difficult to understand why defrauding the NHS was more palatable than taking a loan. It comes across as an extraordinary sense of entitlement.
It was not as though Dr Ullah was being chased by anyone for debts that he could not pay. Other people are likely to be drowning in bills before they resort to crime of this nature.
This was a time when the NHS was dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic and arguably was still recovering from that with waiting times at their highest and with junior doctors striking because of pay and working conditions.
He posted pictures of a £1,250-a-night stay at luxury accommodation showing food and drink
He initially tried to cover up his wrongdoing and even tried to deflect the blame on colleagues but eventually admitted to the offence
Ullah pictured with his wife during a trip to a Disney park in America
Defence lawyer Malcolm Gledhill said: Dr Ullah has dedicated his life to medicine and sought to make a difference. He is a very fine doctor held in high regard, and whose competence and commitment is not doubted. A large number of glowing testimonials from colleagues vouch for Dr Ullah.
He is embracing what has occurred and is seeking to understand what took him there to avoid repetition in the future. That risk of repetition is negligible because of the changes that Dr Ullah had put in place which include different family dynamics, a better relationship with his family members to discuss matters. Dr Ullah believes he will deal with any new pressures in a different way to how he has in the past.
He has been the key person in the family, someone who everyone went to and perhaps in hindsight, it was too much responsibility without negotiating a different approach. He was given various costings and what was potentially required over a period of time and Dr Ullahs cultural heritage discourages incurring interest by borrowing money.
But there has been a sea change which had really made a difference to him managing his own life moving forward.
Ullah (right) and his wife arriving at Wimbledon Magistrates Court in December last year
Ullah appears to try and cover his head with some paperwork in his hand as he left court in December last year
At the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service, Ullahs name was ordered to be erased from the doctors register after he was found guilty of serious professional misconduct
Last January he was sentenced to 24 months jail suspended for two years, required to complete 250 hours unpaid work and pay compensation of £51,902.50 after he admitted using a false instrument
MPTS chairman Mr Andrew Clemes said: Dr Ullahs dishonesty had been persistent, and he had tried to cover it up on a number of occasions including when he was interviewed, also seeking to deflect blame onto colleagues. Dr Ullahs interests are outweighed by the need to maintain public confidence in the profession and to declare and uphold proper professional standards of conduct and behaviour.
When Ullah was sentenced Judge Marcus Tregilgas-Davey told him: Your actions did not stem from anxiety or stress but rather out of greed and avarice. You wanted to reduce the hours that you worked but you wanted to maintain your income.
You have brought disgrace not only upon yourself but upon your profession.. Everyone who reads or watches the news will know that the one organisation that cannot afford to lose large sums of money is the NHS. Monies wrongly taken from that organisation is depriving those monies from going towards caring for the people of this country.
