'Hospital hopper' given criminal asbo

Faced with Christopher Dearlove's apparent symptoms - claims he had been coughing up blood, was stricken by right-sided chest pain, experiencing night sweats and weight loss - hospital staff were swift to admit him to a ward whenever he turned up at A&E. When he added in the detail that he was a haemophiliac who had Aids, or that he had a partner with TB who was resistant to treatment or not taking her medication, he often managed to get his own private room as well. But time after time blood tests, X-rays and ECG scans would come back showing no cause for concern. Dearlove, staff would eventually realise, was a timewaster, or "hospital hopper" - and not just any old hospital hopper, it would turn out, but the UK's most prolific.

This week, the 41-year-old, who is homeless, was given a criminal asbo banning him from entering any NHS building in England or Wales unless he is in need of genuine medical attention, ending a career of faking illness thought to have lasted at least three years and cost the health service tens of thousands of pounds, according to its counter fraud division. He is known to have adopted more than 70 aliases. From 2006, the legal protection unit of the NHS's security management service (SMS) began issuing alerts to hospitals up and down England in a bid to beat Dearlove's ingenuity, a spokesman for the service said yesterday. He would turn up giving false personal details and a largely false medical history, and knew exactly which symptoms would get him admitted to a ward, and how to be classed as highly infectious to bag a coveted place in a side room. Each time he was admitted it cost the NHS Trust involved between £400 and £1,000, the fraud service said.

Dearlove was arrested by Humberside police officers in April last year, and held again, and charged, in October 2009 by Greater Manchester police, after turning up at Rochdale Infirmary. At Bolton crown court yesterday he was handed a three-year community order with a supervision requirement, having earlier pleaded guilty to five of nine charges of fraud by false representation. Four charges were left to remain on the file. The judge warned that he faced a possible prison sentence of up to five years if he breaches his asbo, under which he must not provide false personal information or details of false illnesses to NHS staff.

Hospital hopping is not a widespread problem but does occur from time to time, said Allan Carter, the NHS's head of counter fraud, and needed to be dealt with "robustly". "A single individual can divert thousands of pounds of NHS resources, including beds and medical time." Alan Stewart, the Northern and Yorkshire operational fraud manager, whose team interviewed Dearlove about 17 alleged offences, said: "Dearlove's behaviour had a chronic impact as he was using up valuable hospital resources sorely needed by genuine patients."