1.0https://research.northumbria.ac.uk/scanAmy Cameronhttps://research.northumbria.ac.uk/scan/author/dcpg6/rich600338https://research.northumbria.ac.uk/scan/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/66c62bfe-aa56-49d4-a4a1-36fc58e31e06.jpg15362048Attendees: Nicholas Lord, Katie Benson and Diana Bociga Date of event : 09/09/26 – 12/09/26 Location: Warsaw, Poland Earlier this month, Nicholas Lord, Katie Benson and Diana Bociga joined the 26th Annual Conference of the European Society of Criminology (Eurocrim 2026) in Warsaw, held under the theme “Frontiers of Criminology.” Diana Bociga presented some of the SCAN project’s preliminary findings on the role of Local Counter Fraud Specialists (LCFSs) in the NHS in England. Eurocrim is the Society’s flagship annual conference, bringing together criminologists, practitioners and policymakers from across Europe and beyond to discuss developments in criminology, criminal justice and related fields. Find out more about the European Society of Criminology and this year’s conference here [link]. The presentation focused on how the LCFS role has evolved. The role once centred on detection and investigation; it has expanded into other activities like awareness raising, risk management and education, all of which depend on LCFSs building and sustaining working relationships across NHS organisations. We also touched on the way LCFSs are contracted and how this shapes their work. Whether an LCFS is directly employed by an NHS organisation, works through a consortium/ non-for-profit, or sits within a private sector provider appears to matter for how the role is practised day to day. We also explored some of the findings around what counts as successful counter fraud work. One pattern that stood out is a shift toward prevention and anti-fraud culture. Some participants mentioned that the strongest marker of success is fraud that never happens, meaning the most visible outcome is often that nothing happens at all. A second, related framing described success as an embedded counter fraud culture within the NHS organisations. That shift – from counting prosecutions and sanctions toward valuing prevention and culture – raises further questions, some of which we posed at the conference. How do we know reduction measures are reducing fraud? And how do we assess something as intangible as counter fraud culture within the NHS? Arguably, this question matters more for fraud than for other crime types. For crimes like homicide or knife crime, a drop in numbers is often evidence that real reduction is happening. The nature of fraud is to look like a legitimate transaction, hiding inside ordinary processes and systems. So an absence of visible fraud does not necessarily mean it has been prevented, it might just mean, for example, detection measures have failed. Detection failure and prevention can look identical, and that’s a risk we need to keep in mind as we shift the narrative around what counts as success. We posed these questions to the audience and received positive feedback and good discussion around reducing fraud, frameworks for thinking about prevention, and the public-private dynamics in controlling fraud. Some of these dynamics are ones we’ll keep exploring. We’re grateful to everyone who engaged with the presentation. The questions and conversations gave us plenty to think about, and we’re looking forward to carrying them into the next phase of the project.