UK public voice fear over security in NHS data systems Four out of five patients worry NHS IT systems may be vulnerable to cyber attacks while around half are concerned that the world's largest single health system will sell their data, according to a recent survey. The research comes from NHS England, the government body running state health systems in the UK's largest nation. …
Too expensive to fail.
The problem with all NHS IT projects is that they are never financed properly. They always squeeze the suppliers and so corners are cut. Worse than that, those outfits with the experience and scale to supply IT to the NHS's 1.4 million staff, with concomitant training, support and implementation are not interested in getting involved with what has historically been a series of reputation destroying failures.
The NHS has pulled its socks up somewhat since the Wanna Cry fiasco.
There are annual compliance / Digital assessment.
National MFA is nearly complete.
Centralised Cyber team and service - MF Defender.
However, the issues I see are:
lack of joined up systems, outside of the national tenant, many trusts made up of multiple orgs all doing their own things.
A lack of follow-up on requirements, i.e. if I don't bother with the compliance, MFA or centralised Cyber stuff very little is going to happen, My org can just roll on with crap IT....
A lot of 3rd Party cloud services, storing a lot of clinical data from as "cloud first" ethos. Eeek!
Anon - 'cos I am an insider Bruv
Lots of peope make the assumption that the NHS is one thing. It's not it's a large number of independent legal entities all invoilved in healthcare in some way.
Getting this huge hydra to do the same things is almost impossible.
Coupled with a lot of senior staff who think they are above such trivia.
I don't envy the guys trying to make the NHS secure on a shoestring
With all due respect the NHS is a synonoym for "crap" as far as most people in the UK are concerned. That's not to discredit the vast majority of hardworking staff. It's a terrible but inenvitable outcome from decades of failures with little to zero accountability.
When you throw in concerns over budgets, the number of IT projects gone tits up so far, people at the top who don't understand IT, etc etc etc - this simply doesn't instill trust.
You can blame whoever you want, and you can be guaranteed everyone will blame each other. It will take a long time before public perception of anything NHS related shifts from "on the bones of their arse" to something resembling a quality service managed by people who know/care about the needs of the people they are supposed to be serving.
Put simply it doesn't particularly matter what system they use. But it does matter who delivers it and what the outward perception of that amounts to.
Sort it out from the top, maybe? A pipe dream.
people who know/care about the needs of the people they are supposed to be serving.
I'd settle for treating them less like items on a to do list. I always love watching casualty where not only do they make them better but dedicated time to solving the personal and relationship issues of the patient too as well as eureka-ing an obscure diagnosis rather than being in a rush and having enough time on a patient for "after 10 seconds it looks like x so let's treat the patient for x. even if that didn't work the last 10 times" that happens in real life
The data is safely kept by big corporations who probably have a ton of backups (with third and fourth parties as well) plus if the data is hacked, we get another free backup!
and if you pay the hackers you can probably get your medical records quicker and closer to truth than from your GP or hospital.
There is nothing to worry folks!
Just pay your taxes and stiff the upper lip like everyone else.
The biggest problem with the NHS, is the big bosses and their pet accountants, they get massive pay and bonus, but don't give a shit if the NHS fails, they'll blame others, take the golden parachute payment and move on to the next pay cheque. The issues remain for the next muppet who promises the world and delivers little, and the cycle starts again with the NHS getting worse regardless how much money you through at it. NHS need to fix the simple basic stuff first, like having enough and the right staff nationally, you can't do that without training people which we aren't doing due to students being left with crippling loans or hiring private sector crazy wages. employing overseas staff and even training them at our expenses and then don't hang around to pay it back by serving in the NHS.
All the stuff about upper management - right on the money
Enough and the right staff - shafting by upper management has made the NHS very unattractive in both pay and conditions
Crippling loans - my daughter finished her medical degree with £86K of debt. Had she qualified in 1984 none of that would have existed - governments of both colours
Private sector - yup
Over 40% of medical students are from overseas and return there after qualifying (can't remember exactly where I saw that figure)
Huge numbers of UK medical students go abroad for better pay and conditions once they qualify
Many of this years UK medical students can't get placements to continue their training at the moment - they might find out a few weeks before they start, probably in a completely different areas of the country
The only question in my mind is whether my data will be sold before it is stolen. Or stolen again, since I have had treatment from NHS Dumfries and Galloway and my records are therefore probably already out there.
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