A RECRUITMENT consultant who secured jobs for doctors in hospitals using fake CVs has avoided jail.

Ross Etherson pleaded guilty at Isleworth Crown Court to 21 counts of making or supplying articles for use in fraud.

Etherson, 34, from Balham, London, altered the CVs of eight foreign doctors in a bid to secure them locum jobs at Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust and United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust.

One of the doctors secured a job at Worthing Hospital with Etherson’s help.

He was sentenced to two years in prison, suspended for 12 months, to be served concurrently for each of the 21 counts.

The court heard that Etherson worked for Midas Medical Recruitment in Chiswick, west London, from May 2009 to April 16 2010, when he was arrested.

While working there, he adopted a pseudonym, as was practice in the office, to pass problems on to a fictitious manager.

The company also encouraged adding details of work in the UK and qualifications that did not exist in the UK onto doctor’s CVs.

The scam was discovered when a clinical services manager at Lincoln County Hospital and Grantham District Hospital reported concerns about some locum doctors' CVs and references to the NHS Counter-Fraud Service.

The judge told the court: "When interviewed, Mr Etherson told police that this was the culture of this recruitment company.

"He was trained to carry out such a fraud from the very outset of his employment.

"The doctors were being paid as little as £15 per hour while the agency was charging up to £120 per hour for the services of these doctors.

"The man that is in the dock is at the lowest end of responsibility for this criminal conduct.

"No-one else has, to my knowledge, even been arrested, let alone tried for this shameful practice."

The company is still trading in the same area under a different name, with a commonality of directors.

David Hall, anti-fraud lead at NHS Protect, said: “Ross Etherson’s potentially dangerous deception has caught up with him.

"He abused a position of trust for his personal gain, seeming not to care about the potential consequences for patients of receiving treatment from medical staff whose experience did not meet the requirements of their job.”

No evidence was found that patients had suffered clinically as a result of the fraud.