A DISGRACED Suffolk dentist who cheated the NHS out of £78,000 by billing for 1,700 patients he did not treat, including some who were dead, has been jailed for 18 months.

Edmund Jaques, 64, ran a business called Home Dental Care Ltd and travelled to care homes throughout Suffolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire providing dental services for elderly residents who were unable to visit a surgery, Ipswich Crown Court heard.

Andrew Shaw, prosecuting, told the court that during visits to care homes Jaques, who had contracts with North East Essex Primary Care Trust and Cambridgeshire Primary Care Trust, had taken away lists of residents he had asked for.

“He would take these lists of residents away and fill out claim forms for treating patients without having treated them at all,” said Mr Shaw.

“On a number of occasions not only did he not provide treatment but because the population of care homes changed quite regularly, a number of people for whom he was claiming to have provided treatment had died,” he added.

Suspicions were aroused because of the high number of treatments being claimed for by Jaques and when police searched his home they found documents on which he had practised writing the signatures of senior care home staff to enable him to forge their signatures on treatment claim forms.

Jaques, of Kennett Park Close, Kentford, near Newmarket, admitted fraud between June 16, 2009, and March 12, 2011, by dishonestly submitting multiple FP17 claim forms for payment of dental treatment in respect of patients neither seen or treated by him.

Jailing him for 18 months, Judge John Holt said Jaques had been a respected professional who was expected to be trusted.

He made a confiscation order in the sum of £78,658 which will be paid as compensation to the NHS.

Craig Ferguson, for Jaques, said his client had not pleaded guilty to the offence earlier because he had wanted to attend his daughter’s wedding last month.

He said Jaques qualified as a dentist in 1972 and had started treating residents of care homes after he was seriously injured in a car accident and was left unable to stand all day treating patients in his surgery.

He said that prior to the fraud Jaques was of positive good character and he felt “a deep sense of shame and remorse” for what he had done.

Jaques had obtained £78,000 from the NHS over a period of 21 months for 1,700 patients he had not treated, he said.

He added that Jaques would never work as a dentist again.