AN employee, who stole £34,000 from the doctors' practice where she worked for 13 years, has been jailed for nine months.

Dorothy Hewitt, of the Abbotswood Surgery in Pershore, used the cash to pay household bills and credit card debts. The nine-month fiddle meant a loss of resources to treat patients and created stress within the doctors' partnership, Worcester Crown Court heard.

Hewitt, aged 56, of Glenmoor, Eckington, pleaded guilty last Friday to four specimen counts of theft and asked for 18 similar crimes to be taken into consideration.

The defendant was one of two signatories needed on the practice's dispensary account and had sole responsibity for banking takings, said James Dunstan, prosecuting.

However, acountants found discrepancies between till receipts and cash banked.

Hewitt, who was arrested last July, stole by not paying in the takings, said Mr Dunstan.

She denied some of the thefts at first but 21 cheques which she got a doctor to sign had the payee as herself, her husband or her son - or were to cover private phone bills. She was sacked but psychological stress affected the practice and staff had to be retrained, the court heard.

Mr Dunstan said: "Much of the patients' money belonged to the NHS and this meant a loss of resources to treat other patients."

In 1966 Hewitt was given three years' probation for similar theft offences and in 1973 received a conditional discharge for dishonesty. Dele Alakija, defending, said the offending began after the removal of fund-holding substantially reduced her income.

She found it difficult to maintain her standard of living, ran up £8,000 credit card debts and sank into depression. Mr Alakija insisted that if proper controls had been in place her offending would have been discovered long before it spiralled out of control. The family had remortgaged their home to pay the stolen money back.

Hewitt was having psychiatric treatment and there was a risk of self-harm in jail, he added. But Judge Michael Mott said: "This was an offence against a tightly-knit practice - who were proud of the way they ran things - with all the feelings of betrayal and deceit. It was a gross breach of trust."

A statement from Abbottswood Medical Centre via Janet Ferguson, communications manager at Worcestershire Health Authority, said: "Mrs Dorothy Hewitt held a position of responsibility in the surgery for 13 years. At the time of the thefts she had risen to the position of computer and dispensary finance manager and as such she was particularly concerned with the management of health service dispensary funds and part of the practice funds. The partners and other staff were surprised and shocked to learn of this abuse of trust over a period of years. Following this episode, a full review has been undertaken of financial processes in the surgery and appropriate enhancements have been made to the fiscal controls in the dispensary."