On Tuesday 09 March 2004 15:40, Wayne Wilson wrote: > I wonder if you could provide an updated assessement on how the grass > roots movements and FLOSS are faring under the new NHS spending programme.
Not flavour of the month. OTOH, all projects except the national one (NPfIT) have essentially been stopped, paused, ruled out, or rendered well-nigh impossible. So if anyone wants to do something that is not part of the centralised plan - to address a local need for instance - they are going to find it strikingly hard to get ingredients that have a purchase price. Time and people are easier to allocate. > Both IDX and iSoft deliver Microsoft based (entangled would be a > better word) client/server records systems and CMWHealth as part of > the National Spine program will integrate local records into a > national record using XML and HL7. I have yet to meet anyone who believes any part of this will actually reach usefuly working. Lots of people would be quite pleased if something did actually get built, and if so if it did something vaguely useful, but the managers I meet look at the NHS' record of managing IT projects of any size other than small to medium, and don't believe it will be managed, and the techies and IT people look at it and very very quietly dare to doubt that "garanteed to work becuase it is built with the latest technology from MS - .net" is quite so reliable as it is presented, and the doctors by and large look at it and say "what's that, has it been mentioned before?" and go on to saying, "that isn't what we need". But what do any of us know? -- Adrian Midgley (Linux desktop) GP, Exeter http://www.defoam.net/
