Capita has bought part of the troubled Australian healthcare IT provider iSoft for £23m.

iSoft Business Solutions (iBS) is a subsidiary that provides accounting and purchasing software to about 60 per cent of NHS trusts. The sell-off is part of an effort to reduce iSoft's £150m debt burden.

iBS turned over £17.7m in the financial year to 30 June, for a pro forma operating profit of £3.2m. It has 140 staff, mainly in Letchworth and Dublin.

Shares in the iSoft group have plummeted 90 per cent this year on fears over its growing debt and the fate of Lorenzo, its much-delayed flagship electronic patient records system, which it developed for the NHS National Programme for IT.

The coalition is now committed to implementing most of the programme, however, and iSoft's partner CSC is due to install Lorenzo in NHS trusts in the North, Midlands and East of England. ®