Gangs target NHS hospitals

NHS medical equipment is being stolen to order by criminal gangs, police fear.

Hundreds of thousands of pounds of medical equipment has recently been stolen from hospitals and similarities between the crimes are leading the police to suspect that organised criminal gangs could be behind the thefts.

There are ten known cases in all, including the theft of ?300,000 worth of endoscopy equipment from York Hospital and a ?35,000 heart scanner stolen from University Hospital, north Durham.

Leicester General Hospital and Newcastle’s Freeman Hospital have also been targeted.

Detective sergeant Judith Smith from North Yorkshire police said that the equipment was probably being sold on in eastern Europe.

“There are quite a few similarities in the cases we have seen,” she told the BBC. “It seems they are organised by groups or a group of individuals who know what they are doing.”

The NHS Security Management Services (SMS) are helping police with the investigations.

Paul Gilderdale from the NHS SMS agreed that the hospitals seemed to have been targeted by organised gangs.

“This sort of crime is deplorable as it is depriving patients of vital medical equipment,” he told the BBC.

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