NHS set for outsourced passage to India?

A supplier has put the cat among the proverbial provisions by calling for the transfer of health service administration jobs to the Indian sub-continent as the only way for the NHS to meet its twin goals of making £20 billion saving cuts by 2014 but protecting frontline delivery.

The executive is also claiming more than £1 billion of taxpayers' money is being wasted every year by health service managers spending too much on the same supplies, in a possible health service echo of the poor procurement practices highlighted by the Green review last year.

John Neilson, managing director of NHS Shared Business Services, which provides a number of back office services, including e-procurement, to over 100 NHS Trusts, told The Times that millions of pounds could be saved by outsourcing health administration overseas, that Indian workers were easily as good as their British counterparts and that 'the only hurdle to such a plan' would be patient unwillingness to book appointments with foreign operators.

"It's scary. We actually have multiple prices being paid for the same item in the same [NHS] trust, in the same month," he is quoted as saying.

Call centres in India already handle invoices and other administration for some Trusts at a fraction of what it would cost in the UK, Neilson claimed.

Regarding procurement, Neilson alleges that multiple prices are routinely being paid for the same pieces of equipment - ranging from stationery to surgical instruments, such as 19 different prices for the same pacemaker, wasting up to £750 a time, or a specialist surgical tool being purchased for lows of £289 to a high of £403. In total, he claims, as much as 12% of the entire £13 billion NHS purchasing budget may be being needlessly squandered this way.

NHS Shared Business Services is a joint venture between the NHS and IT outsourcing provider Steria. Founded in 2002, it already uses offshore support resources in Pune and Noida, India, where it has nearly 700 workers, mostly employed on data entry and financial administration.