In 2010, an agreement between Microsoft and the NHS to provide almost all Microsoft software to the service for one single fee and to keep the software updated with new releases was not renewed by the incoming coalition government (NHS targeted in global cyber-attack, 14 May). It cost a few billion, but the budget for it was there, and it saved many billions more. Microsoft also liked it, of course, as it saved it the hassle of organising multiple sales with the many different parts of the service. As I understood it, the Cabinet Office stopped it dead.
At the time, I was one of a group of NHS users consulted by those preparing the case for the arrangement to be continued. We were all shocked when it wasn’t renewed. Many people argued it was a mistake at the time. This relatively basic IT (Windows, Office, Mail, SQL server, and so forth) cost the NHS far more as a result. Further, the lack of the single agreement effectively moved the cost of upgrades on to individual hospitals, community providers, GPs and commissioners, and no new money was made available by the coalition government to help these individual units close the gap.
Obviously, directors of finance looked sceptically at new requests to upgrade systems that seemed to be working perfectly OK, and with the huge pressures on NHS budgets that we all know about, it is perhaps understandable that other local priorities were addressed first. I suspect this goes some way to explain why the NHS was hit harder than many organisations by the recent malware attack – as a result of that single bad decision, the service contains far more older systems which can’t be or haven’t been updated.Interestingly, in response to Wannacry, the Tory Government now, finally, appear to have partially reversed their strategy...
