Combatting CV Fraud: Best Practice Tips

Our Employment Law & Benefits team highlights two recent employment cases concerning CV fraud in the healthcare sector, and outlines some helpful tips for employers to try and combat this issue.

What you need to know

• Research suggests that a significant percentage of candidates embellish, or lie, when drafting their CVs.
• CV fraud in the healthcare sector affects not only employers and employees, but has the potential to seriously affect patients and cause significant reputational damage.
• Certain background checks may be conducted by employers, provided these are proportionate and comply with data protection and equality legislation.

Recent cases

One example of CV fraud came to light as part of a trial in 2024, involving a nurse in Wales who had been employed as a neonatal ward manager. Concerns regarding this nurse arose during the revalidation of her nursing and midwifery council registration. It was noted that her registration number stated she had qualified in 2013, despite her CV stating she qualified in 2010. On further inquiry, additional inaccuracies emerged. Despite being listed on her CV as former employers, separate hospitals in London and Watford confirmed to her then-employer that they had no record of the nurse ever working there.

Similarly, when the employer attempted to verify her qualifications, three of the universities she claimed to have attended had no record of her enrolment. Another confirmed the nurse’s attendance but found no evidence of her obtaining the qualification she had claimed to have achieved there. Ultimately, the nurse was sentenced to five years in prison.

Closer to home, in 2023, a former optometrist working for an optician in Cork was found guilty of professional misconduct for failing to disclose to his employers that he had not conducted eye tests for over a decade. This contradicted the individual’s CV, which falsely indicated that his most recent role had been just two years before joining the optician. CORU’s fitness-to-practice committee, in finding 35 allegations of poor professional performance were proven against the optometrist, stated that his failure to disclose his lack of relevant experience compromised the health, safety and welfare of all clients he had seen.

Background checks

In an effort to prevent similar issues arising, employers should review their recruitment processes and ensure that these are up to date. Part of this may involve a review of what background checks the employer currently undertakes as part of the application process. While some employee background checks may be lawful, depending on the nature of the role, care should be taken to ensure compliance with obligations under data protection and equality legislation.

Two key background checks in this regard include:

1. The verification of relevant education, and
2. The verification of employment history.

In order to verify an employee’s relevant education, it would be common to request documentary evidence of the employee’s qualifications. For employment history, it is standard practice for an employer to require satisfactory employment references, verbal or written, from an employee prior to the commencement of employment, and employers should ensure that these references are obtained.

It is also not uncommon for employers to carry out searches of publicly accessible social media accounts. However, to avoid the risk of a legal challenge, the applicant should be notified in advance that their public social media profiles may be examined, in the context of a candidate privacy notice.

Other checks, such as criminal background checks and medical checks may be permissible in certain limited circumstances.

Importantly, all background checks must be conducted in accordance with data protection and equality legislation.

In particular, any background checks conducted must be reasonable and appropriate, and the information gathered from those checks should be necessary in order to confirm the individual is suitable for the role. In addition, employers who perform background checks should do so in a fair and consistent manner. Employers should avoid requesting information regarding an applicant’s:

• Gender
• Age
• Race
• Sexual orientation
• Civil status
• Family status
• Disability
• Religious belief, or
• Membership of the Traveller community

unless there are objectively justifiable reasons for doing so, having regard to the nature of the role.

Addressing CV fraud post-hire

If an employee slips through the cracks and it later emerges that they provided false information on their CV, this may – depending on the nature of the misinformation – amount to a fundamental breach of the implied term of mutual trust and confidence in the employment relationship. In certain circumstances, this could give the employer the right to dismiss the employee following a disciplinary process. However, as every situation is different, employers should exercise caution before moving to dismiss and should take appropriate legal advice.

Next steps

Evidently, the fallout from CV fraud is a distinct problem for employers, with the potential for serious client care issues and reputational damage. CV fraud can also result in increased recruitment costs arising from the need to hire another suitable candidate. As a result, employers should proactively review and where necessary, update, their existing recruitment policies to ensure they have appropriate CV verification procedures in place.

Contact our Employment Law & Benefits team to find out more.

The content of this article is provided for information purposes only and does not constitute legal or other advice.