MICHELLE WATSON

Michelle spent the first 12 years of her career as a police officer in Northumbria Police, working in both uniform and specialist crime roles. In 2002, she began working for the NHS Counter Fraud Operational Service as an investigator, dealing with high profile and high value cases of fraud against the NHS in the North-East and Yorkshire areas. 

In 2011, Michelle had a career change and moved to the Care Quality Commission as a compliance inspector for both social care and NHS providers. However, her interest in dealing with NHS fraud saw her return to NHS Protect in 2013 where, for the next 5 years, she performed the role of senior quality and compliance inspector. This involved leading on quality assessments of locally delivered counter fraud services across the north of England. During this time, Michelle was also a pivotal member of the organisation’s working group to devise and review the national NHS Standards for Providers and Commissioners – Fraud, bribery and corruption. She also launched and ran a national project to ensure engagement and adherence to the standards from independent healthcare providers, where necessary.

Michelle joined AuditOne in May 2018 as a counter fraud manager, with joint responsibility for the effective delivery of counter fraud services to over 20 NHS primary and secondary care organisations and independent healthcare providers. Since then, she has expanded her portfolio to become our head of operations for reactive work undertaken.

In addition to her qualifications to carry out NHS counter fraud work, Michelle is also an accredited security management specialist; she holds a BSI Diploma in Quality Management and is a UK Mediation Accredited Mediator (Level 4).