Hospital appointment calls that are made in the NHS program may get outsourced to India. This step is part of the efficiency drive that is being followed in NHS for cost cutting now.

Critics of the move have called it 'cheapskate'. The move for sending the administrative jobs to call centers in Delhi, Mumbai or other low cost cities of India was suggested by one of the very senior health service officials.

But as expected, the suggestion was taken up with a lot of harsh critics who were of the view that such a step was like playing with people's privacy. They said that medical records of patients could be in danger and can lead to things like misdiagnoses.

Surprisingly, such a move has been proposed even after an incident that took place two years back. At that time it was said that medical records of one of top hospitals in London was sold off by one of Indian call center staff member.

But nothing was proved and now NHS which is trying hard to reduce its already ballooned costs needs to take up outsourcing.