NHS England's £200m ERP replacement misses another deadline as procurement runs 2 years behind schedule NHS England has missed the latest deadline in the procurement of a £200m replacement ERP system responsible for managing the UK's annual health spending of £110bn and is now more than two years late. The migration of the Oracle financial management system to a cloud-based ERP system, which is now judged a "red" risk, according …
NHS IT when certain directors and management are involved are always bollocks.
Moved from Dell kit to HP kit one year, with no consultation with the other trusts and turns out 2 directors had, had a trip to Silicon Valley to "test the kit" paid for by HP. Then came back with two "Gifts" which we all pointed out where bribes but they denied it.
Then there was, allegedly, the Fujitsu contract that they paid for but then kept wanting more options, (paraphrasing) "Can we add this, can you put this in, add that, and this" Fujitsu said "That wasn't part of the deal, need more added then pay us more money" they said "Oh no, we can't do that" and kept changing the NHS project manager and which point Fujitsu, allegedly said that's enough, we're out. And pulled out of the contract, at which point the trust sued.
Never found out what happened with that but, have now just discovered the story
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-28464002
I appreciate the need to document the request for tender, but in this scenario it’s like they’ve gone too far.
They clearly need a cloud platform that can perform certain functions. I’d probably stop close to that and then broadly specify the functions.
When I studied databases at uni my impression was that 1 giant db system could run a whole organisation, of course when appropriately carved up and secured.
I continue to not comprehend why multiple separate db’s are needed to make a system.
I think the need for detailed specification comes from the IR35. To keep sub-contractors outside of IR35 they need to have exact specification of what needs to be delivered, with milestones and all that.
As soon as there is any control during the contract, it may tip it in scope and thus make it financially not viable for the sub-contractor.
Keeping everything out of scope is extremely bureaucratic and waterfallesque.
The UK Government has an Infrastructure and Projects Authority?
I never knew. I wonder who is on it and what experience they have of delivering complicated and large projects of any kind on time and within budget.
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/infrastructure-and-projects-authority
Scroll down for the board level members. They all seem to be eminent people, but only one admits to having a technical degree or background:
"Matthew has an M.A from Cambridge University." (Which basically means that he got a B.A., waited a year and then paid to upgrade to an M.A., like my dad did years ago.).
"Alison is a Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers."
"A Chartered Surveyor, Jon spent the early part of his career delivering major infrastructure projects, before going on to lead major businesses for two of the fastest growing infrastructure PLCs in the UK."
"Helen has a degree in Economics from Nottingham University and an MA in European Economics from the College of Europe"
"Stephen has more than 35 years of experience in social and economic infrastructure projects."
"Fiona graduated from the Government Major Projects Leadership Academy in 2014."
"Rod has worked at executive board level within global professions, particularly legal."
And the chairman: "At Shell, Nick was accountable for managing how projects were delivered and a variety of significant improvement programmes."
Strangely none of their biographies lists actually delivering 'stuff', but I'm sure they are all excellent people.
“ The UK Government has an Infrastructure and Projects Authority?”
It’s worse than that
The uk had a proper agency that defined how computing should be done
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Computer_and_Telecommunications_Agency
Came out with gems like ssadm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structured_systems_analysis_and_design_method
Amongst many other practical & useful methods.
Obviously, surely, someone somewhere has said targets are achievable, for such is what gets the money to flow to changing systems developers/leaders. The fact that they are not yet achieved and be deemed rank unachievable are surely indicative of a monumental fraud by those agents/shyster/hucksters/snake oil salesmen/call them what you will, unable to deliver what they promised, and something by all accounts here on El Reg is most probably still being actively perpetrated and perpetuated.
Is that typical of such public contract work in the UK? And is it invariably unpunishable with no one suffering any meaningful punitive penalty for responsible accountability?
One imagines that must make such a farce a very popular and lucrative activity amongst the less than honest and wholesome, and a right rotten blight and crippling blot on any landscape and many a vision. That it be allowed is a fool weakness which invites relentless exploitation.
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