General / Off-Topic NHS still on XP

[beelbeebub]

so the NHS is still, like many government departments, mainly running on XP.

I'm outside my IT expertise here but given the NHS mainly uses computers for low power mundane tasks like email, appointment booking, letters, patient records etc. is that not well within the ability of Linux and a Raspberry pi 3?
the NHS is big enough to have a permanent team developing nhsOS for the raspberry pi 3.

It could be built from the ground up as a dedicated OS for the NHS, with all the bits it needs and none of the stuff it doesn't. If the hardware was standardised on the RP3 in a standard case, then it could be easy to deploy, the hardware would be dirt cheap (imagine the bulk discount on 100ks of RP3s) keyboards, monitors and mice are already there. PSU's are cheap and easy. Power consumption is low, foot print is small.
They could take the opportunity to make a light and efficient system for the general NHS tasks. obviously some stuff like diagnostics, MRI scanners etc would need dedicated PC's and software but the saving on having a 100 or so developers doing just nhsOS and the apps for it would be huge? Lets say 100k per year per dev, 250 of them inc admin and management - £250k a year in wages and the same in office space. £500k for all the main NHSs IT needs.

OK you'd still need server and data centres but that's the same as now. You wouldn't be stuck with the same obsolescence and upgrade issues. The NHS could still be using the same hardware and OS in 20 years time if the OS is maintained. even if the RP3 becomes end of life, the NHS could just buy the licence and continue production or simply migrate to the RP6 or whatever.

Am I mad? Anyone with Linux and IT experience?

 

[Asp Explorer]

I haven't worked with the NHS for donkeys, but a lot depends on who is the current "preferred provision partner" of the week. Wether it's ECS, Syntegra, Fujitsu Siemens, CSC, whoever - they will find some way of creating some huge rollout upgrade project, gobble up all the cash, deliver less than nothing, and make such a mess that the next "preferred provision partner" is woken up to do the exact same thing over and over again

 

[beelbeebub]

I haven't worked with the NHS for donkeys, but a lot depends on who is the current "preferred provision partner" of the week. Wether it's ECS, Syntegra, Fujitsu Siemens, CSC, whoever - they will find some way of creating some huge rollout upgrade project, gobble up all the cash, deliver less than nothing, and make such a mess that the next "preferred provision partner" is woken up to do the exact same thing over and over again

yeah, that seems to be the current cycle

I can't help but feel that this is an area where the model of contracting private suppliers is poor.

if the NHS had a permanent dept for the provision of basic IT, might it not be better? or at least no worse.

local it services could be contracted out, but the core OS development could be done in house/open source as a light branch of Linux?

 

[Asp Explorer]

Speaking as a contracted private supplier - the whole situation is disgraceful.

I see no easy way out of it though, the NHS is a business run by business for business

 

[beelbeebub]

Speaking as a contracted private supplier - the whole situation is disgraceful.

I see no easy way out of it though, the NHS is a business run by business for business

...that also happens to dabble in health care!

it would require a completely different mindset from the current "private is best" vision. Not that I'm a fan of big government behemoths, but from my interactions as a private contractor to the NHS, they are woefully equipped to deal with private businesses, they get eaten alive. We need solid, aggressive, competent "in house" management to control the private sector. Then the NHS could reap the benefits of the private sector rather than being reaped itself.

 

[Cargobane]

Theater fake news?