NHS staff have been issued an urgent warning about a scammer who claimed to have Ebola and AIDS to get medicine, food and a bed.

Homeless man Christopher Dearlove, 63, was banned from every hospital in England and Wales after using 98 false names to get shelter.

He was previously slapped with an ASBO after he coughed on two hospital receptionists saying he had just returned from West Africa where his wife had died from Ebola.

The Princess of Wales Hospital in Grimsby was placed on lockdown as medics scrambled to put on protective gear — but they later discovered Dearlove had lied.

And a court also heard how he once coughed up fake blood and convinced doctors he was a haemophiliac with AIDS so he could get a room to himself.

But despite his previous convictions, a new "risk alert" has been sent out to all hospital staff in Wales.

It tells employees to call 999 if they see Dearlove — who is thought to have cost the NHS thousands of pounds with his cons.

The alert calls him a "prolific offender" at hospitals along the M4 corridor.

Dearlove also goes by the aliases Gary Fowler, Gary Ryan and Gary Lampard.

According to the NHS Counter Fraud Service (CFS) Wales, the first risk alert on Dearlove wasting NHS resources was sent out in January 2018.

A spokesperson for the service told Wales Online: "NHS CFS Wales has recently issued a new intelligence bulletin to key NHSstaff.

"We are currently collating information on the subject's attendances at NHS hospitals in England and Wales, with the intention of taking appropriate preventative action to protect NHS resources."