UK Government decided to save NHS budget by outsourcing NHS administration to Indian call centres and data bases

th January 2011: Indians in the UK may soon find their kith and kin back home making the most out of outsourcing by the UK.

In fact, Indian call centres are all set for extra earnings during the coming financial year, as the government’s biggest spending department — National Health Service (NHS) —seeks new ways to save money.

Having an annual budget of £104 billion, the department wants to achieve 20 per cent savings by 2014.

According to health service managers, the target can best be achieved by outsourcing more NHS administration to Indian call centres and data bases. Compared to their counterparts in the UK, these are cheaper to run.

Even now, the Indian call centers are among the preferred ones. A UK government-backed company, NHS Shared Business Services (SBS), currently employees 700 Indians in Delhi and Pune for taking care of invoices, data entry and administration.

Their work has earned praise of SBS managing director John Neilson. He had only recently explained there is no clinical data, medical record data or anything with that level of sensitivity or anything that involves direct customer contact, none of that sort of activity happens in India. He had added they were sensitive to the market need that people feel more comfortable with that sort of data being managed in the UK,” he added.

Acting chief executive of the NHS Confederation Nigel Edwards says outsourcing more back office functions to India might be something that people will look at and the NHS might save money.

Categories: Immigration