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Francesco Scaglioni wrote:
I work in the NHS and don't know what it is about - please enlighten if can.
Some is here... http://www.doh.gov.uk/ipu/whatnew/deliveringit/index.htm www.silicon.com are quoting national newspapers as stating a 5bn pound outsourcing deal is being bid on by 5 companies, but I don't quite see how that fits in with the plan, as they haven't even agree standards. Either way it is dependent on treasury spending approval, but any 5bn pound outsourcing deal sounds like it has big potential to go very wrong for the tax payer. I'm ambivalent on recentralising IT development in the NHS, although I seem to remember the previous central NHS IT group were so appalling at big projects they were effectively all but abolished. This group got a rough ride in some of the internal Government IT publications when I was working for 'Her Majesty', kind of a "how not to do big project" article... Don't get me wrong, grandiose thinking can work in IT, and just because you think big doesn't mean you build a cathedral or a white elephant, the Internet is an example of thinking big, as is the Free Software Foundation, and dare I say Microsoft ("A computer of every desk"). But there are lots of examples of big projects that were still born as well. However I very much doubt if you pay 5bn pounds to BT or Siemens they'll try anything but building you a cathedral, probably one where you pay 20 to 30% maintenance costs a year as well. Or in the case of the CPS, put a PC on every desktop and then have the project crash in a big heap.... For example setting standards for Broadband connectivity 2Mbps minimum here, 128Kbps there, is a SMART target, but you can achieve that by giving BT huge sums of money, or you can achieve it by telling local NHS IT managers "big pot of money provided your bids match these criteria"..... The plan seems to suggest the latter strategy, so why are big companies bidding for an outsourcing deal? Confused of Woodbury Salterton.... Simon, whose financial interest is probably that his friends at Sema win such a contract. -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG Mail majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe list" in the message body to unsubscribe.