LONDON: Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) is expected to move around 400 jobs to India to save costs as part of a part-privatization of its back-office accounting and purchasing division.

IT services firm Xansa is reported to be taking a 50 percent stake in a government agency that does purchasing and accounting on behalf of the NHS. The firm has guaranteed to cut costs by 20 percent, potentially saving the NHS 220 million pounds over 10 years.

The deal will initially mean the transfer of 230 NHS staff to the private firm. They are based in Bristol and Leeds and are employed by the state-owned group Shared Financial Service Centres, which will become a private company in April under the terms of the deal.

The staff already conducts back-office work such as invoice payment and VAT (value added tax) returns for 36 of 663 NHS organizations and Department of Health agencies.

Xansa plans to increase the number of NHS divisions it services to more than 300, which should bring in revenues of around $950 million in the next 10 years. A Xansa spokesman said that as the firm increases its staff numbers, 350-400 employees, a third of the staff on the project, will be based in India.