A NURSE who stole £14,000 from the NHS after quitting her job has been spared prison.

Sandra Lloyd pocketed the cash after she kept being paid despite leaving her post with Gwent’s Aneurin Bevan Health Board.

The 61-year-old continued to receive her monthly wage for eight months, despite leaving her job at Ysbyty Ystrad Fawr hospital in Ystrad Mynach.

The money was being paid due to NHS administrative blunders, but was discovered following a payroll audit.

Lloyd had resigned from her £29,390 role at Ysbyty Ystrad Fawr to take up a better paid clinical training job, Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court was told.

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Prosecutor Abigail Jackson said: “It was discovered, due to errors in the internal system and procedural failings, the defendant had continued to be paid her salary despite no longer working in her role.

“Between November 8, 2020 and July 31, 2021, she received £21,389.68 in gross salary payments which she was not entitled to.

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“After deductions, the actual sum received by the defendant was £14,218.80.

“Over the eight-month period she did not inform the health board that she was receiving the money in error or make any offer to repay the amount.”

During this time Lloyd was also being paid the salary in her new job and was getting an NHS pension.

The defendant initially refused to reply to questions she was sent by email by a health board investigator.

She then told him she knew she was being overpaid and claimed she had told the payroll department who had said to her “not to worry”.

A later request by the NHS that she repay the money was ignored.

Lloyd, of Blaennantygroes Road, Aberdare, Rhondda Cynon Taf, pleaded guilty to theft.

She was a woman of previous good character with no convictions recorded against her.

The court heard the money has now been repaid and that the defendant was looking to return to the NHS via an agency.

She is “conditionally” due to start working at Prince Charles Hospital in Merthyr Tydfil.

Adam Sharpe, representing her, said in mitigation: “She is a 61-year-old lady with a long history of working within the nursing sector, the care sector.

“In 2020 she was placed in the front line in the Covid wards where we recall the rather distressing scenes with the absence of PPE which affected her greatly.

Judge Shomon Khan jailed Lloyd for eight months, suspended for 12 months.

She was ordered to carry out 100 hours of unpaid work, pay £1,124.69 in costs to the NHS and CPS and a £156 victim surcharge.