The British government decided to allow its patients with non-emergency i.e immediately non-life threatening conditions to be treated in Indian hospitals under a scheme paid for by taxpayers in Great Britain.

Indian Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss who visted UK in January 2008 told a gathering of Indian physicians in London Saturday that he hoped the scheme would be up and running 'in the coming few months'.

While opening the 10th anninversary celebrations of the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (BAPIO), Ramadoss said the scheme would enable British patients under the state-funded National Health Service to use Indian healthcare facilities previously inaccessible to them.

As per the existing European Union regulations, insurance covers only the treatment that falls within three hours of flying time from the European patients' country of location.

But Ramadoss said that 'three hours or seven and a half hours' made little difference in a globalising world, where healthcare had to compete in the global marketplace.

India's Trade and Commerce Minister Kamal Nath who visited UK the previosu month told his opposite numbers in London that the NHS could cut patients' waiting time by outsourcing treatment to India, prompting a positive response from British authorities.

Growing waiting lists in NHS-run hospitals has become a political issue in Britain.

In his comments Saturday, Ramadoss said some 300,000 foreigners came to India for medical treatment last year.

The increasing number of corporate hospitals in all the major cities in India are all well equipped with the state of the art infrastructure and staffed adequately with highly skilled health professionals.

These modern Indian hospitals are all ready to cope with with increasing number of foreign patients arriving in near future from the UK shopping for better and prompt health care.