[blue_cookeh]

> Ideally the NHS would just build it in house, but sadly it's a slow and bloated organisation unable to innovate (as most government managed things usually become).

This is patently false, a narrative often parroted by people who don't understand or have never worked in the NHS.

There are many intelligent people in technical/digital roles in the NHS that innovate on a daily basis - heck, many build systems internally at a hugely reduced cost compared to outsourcing yet decisions come from parliament/gov agencies that overrule internal decision making and waste insane amounts of cash on vanity projects, or scrapping internal work to be redone by the likes of Accenture.

[0xy]

Given the NHS' costs continue to explode, and most of the cash goes straight to padding middle management, it seems easy to see that it's a slow and bloated organization.

After all, the UK's health spending is increasing at a rate 2,000% higher than close neighbor France's is -- indicating massive fraud and waste.

[Terr_]

That "increasing at a rate" vague phrasing makes me instinctively suspicious of abused statistics.

For example, suppose in 24 hours France's spending goes up +0% and the UK's spending goes up +0.001%: "Oh my god! The UK's spending is increasing at a rate infinity times more!!11"

[Engineering-MD]

Do you have a source to say most of the money goes to middle management? My understanding was management employment numbers and costs have reduced over the last decade, but I’m happy to be shown to be wrong via up to date evidence.

[cedws]

Why does the NHS have a mismatch of IT systems that don't fit together then? Why are they still running Windows XP?

[red-iron-pine]

I've been at three F500 companies, ones you've heard of and probably own products from, and most had Server 2003 and aging HP-UX (or AIX, or Solaris) boxes in the mix.

That the NHS has a few old systems doesn't mean jack shit.

Like, there are still mainframes in use in many places, and more than you'd think.