Charles Walker calls on the Health Secretary to make a statement about plans to outsource NHS patient records services and back office functions to India.

Mr. Walker: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what NHS (a) patient records services and (b) back office functions (i) have been and (ii) are planned to be outsourced to India; and if she will make a statement. [114375]

Caroline Flint [holding answer 11 January 2007]: Information is not held centrally on the number of national health service organisations which currently outsource aspects of patient record management or the typing of patient records, or back office functions, to agencies overseas.

In the future, each consenting person using the NHS will have a personal electronic care record held within the NHS care records service (NHS CRS). The NHS CRS is the lynchpin of the new modern, integrated information technology (IT) infrastructure and systems and services being implemented through the national programme for IT. No national IT systems maintaining patient record services have been outsourced to India and there is no intention to do so. It is known that iSOFT plc, one of the application software subcontractors, is developing software in India. This software is operated exclusively within England.

Contracts let by the Department's NHS Connecting for Health agency, which is responsible for delivering the national programme, expressly preclude the transfer of patient information outside the United Kingdom. NHS Shared Business Services Ltd, a 50/50 joint venture between the Department and Xansa, currently provides financial and accounting services to over 100 NHS trusts and other NHS bodies. At present, 28.5 per cent. of their work is handled through an outsourcing contract to Xansa PLC's India-based operation. The partners have agreed that no more than 60 per cent. of work can be offshored through this venture.

These developments are entirely in keeping with the Government's overall objective of maximising value for money across the NHS, and the public sector as a whole.

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