A senior nurse who fraudulently claimed nearly £20,000 by adding shifts she never worked to a hospital’s electronic roster has been struck off the nursing register. Faith Chareka, a former Senior Sister in the Emergency Department at Wexham Park Hospital in Slough, was convicted of fraud by abuse of position after a two-year deception that left her colleagues covering for her and the NHS out of pocket.
Chareka, who worked for Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust, was dismissed in 2023 following an internal investigation. She later pleaded guilty at East Berkshire Magistrates’ Court in September 2024 and was sentenced at Reading Crown Court in April 2025. The judge handed her an 18-month suspended prison sentence, along with 15 rehabilitation activity days and 200 hours of unpaid work, describing her actions as “repeated and premeditated dishonesty over a period of two years”.
The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) fitness to practise committee has now removed her from the register, concluding that no lesser sanction could maintain public confidence in the profession.
How the fraud was carried out
Between November 1, 2020 and February 1, 2023, Chareka added 50 fictitious shifts to the trust’s HealthRoster system. As a Senior Sister, she held administrative access to the roster and used it to allocate and modify shifts – including her own – retrospectively, according to the NMC panel report. Many of the falsely claimed shifts were paid at enhanced rates, typically applied to night shifts, bank holidays and weekends, which substantially increased the financial benefit.
In total, she received £19,575.41 in payments for work she did not perform. In addition, she accrued 540 hours of time off in lieu (TOIL) for shifts she had never worked, meaning she could take paid leave while her colleagues were left to cover the hours she had claimed.
The NMC panel noted that the facts leading to the conviction involved “the repeated allocation and booking of shifts you did not work by accessing the roster and adding shifts retrospectively for your financial and personal gain”. Her dishonesty included taking TOIL for those unworked hours, the report stated.
Gareth Robins, the Local Counter Fraud Specialist for the trust, said: “She abused the trust placed in her by Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust and her extremely hard-working colleagues. She claimed to have worked hours when she hadn’t set foot in the hospital, forcing her dedicated colleagues to work additional hours to cover for her, when she was taking time off in lieu of those hours falsely claimed.”
Impact on the NHS and colleagues
The offending was described during sentencing as having been “committed against a publicly funded NHS body already under financial pressure”, Rosie Welsh, the case presenter for the NMC, told the hearing. She added that Chareka “placed patients at potential risk of harm by exposing the ED to the potential risk of understaffing, delays, reduced support for colleagues and wider strain upon the service”.
The NMC panel expressed concern about the potential impact of Chareka’s conduct on patient services and the workforce. “Your conduct removed substantial funds from the trust during and beyond the Covid pandemic, which placed pressure on already challenged NHS resources,” the report said. “Your dishonest receipt of TOIL meant that rather than you working the shifts, the shifts would need to be covered by others. The panel concluded that your conduct could have had a direct impact on human resources and the financial position of the trust.”
NHS Counter Fraud Authority (NHSCFA) investigators are now using powers under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 to trace, restrain and recover the stolen funds. The case is a further illustration of the scale of fraud against the health service: the NHSCFA estimates the NHS loses £1.34 billion every year to fraud – enough taxpayer money to pay for more than 40,000 staff nurses or over 5,000 emergency ambulances. Such fraud includes the manipulation of income and hours, insider abuses, and false representation – particularly through the falsification of timesheets and retrospective booking of bank shifts to claim enhanced pay, as Chareka did.
Remorse and the decision to strike off
At the NMC hearing, Alexandra Monaghan, representing Chareka, argued that her client had “demonstrated genuine remorse and insight” into the seriousness of her conduct and had “expressed repeated heartfelt apologies”. She said Chareka had spent considerable time reflecting on her behaviour and submitted that the purpose of sanction was not to punish, reminding the panel that Chareka had been “sufficiently punished in the criminal court”.
Ms Welsh, however, told the hearing that the “only sanction capable of maintaining public confidence in the profession and marking the seriousness of your misconduct is a striking-off order”. The panel agreed and struck Chareka from the nursing register. Because the order cannot take effect until the end of the 28-day appeal period, an interim suspension order of 18 months was imposed to cover any potential period of appeal.