Fake Qld nurse worked for six weeks

A man worked as a nurse for six weeks in an indigenous north Queensland community using a fraudulent employee number before the problem was picked up.

The fake employee was stood down after the payroll system identified that he was using someone else's registration number at the Aurukun Primary Health Centre on Cape York.

He has been referred to the Queensland Police Service, the Crime and Misconduct Commission and the Health Ombudsman, Health Minister Cameron Dick said on Wednesday.

"I'm very concerned that the initial recruitment and screening of this individual in December 2014 and January 2015 was not thoroughly conducted," Mr Dick said.

"The relevant officer responsible has been stood down."

A departmental taskforce has launched an investigation into how the man managed to slip through the system, but Mr Dick defended the usual screening process as "robust".

"The reality of the matter is that some people engage in serious fraudulent activity and we need to have a system to try and exclude those people from our system."

Mr Dick says preliminary indications reveal the man had not caused any harm to patients, but he was not able to say if the man had a criminal history.

He may have also worked elsewhere in Australia, the health minister said.

"For me, that is unacceptable," he said.

"As necessary, I will take it to a national level to raise it with other health ministers around Australia."

The department is investigating whether there are systemic problems in the screening process, however, Mr Dick said he was hopeful it was an isolated case.