What has an 'open-door policy' with industry and puts the X into NHS? Brits, let app-happy Matt Hancock tell you The UK government has plans for another health quango that will not only oversee data, digital and tech procurement but have an "open door" policy with the IT industry. The new unit, named NHSX – the X is left unexplained, presumably it's evocative of a badass futuristic tech-led body – was announced by Brit health secretary …
I am. After my experiences working on NHS contracts, it'd be "never again; If an NHS IT manager was in fire I'd put them out with a gallon of 130 RON especially saved for the occasion". On one notable occasion we were being paid £100 a day for grunt work for 3 MONTHS - and could do precisely nothing because no one had thought to get the lock down passwords for the computers before the sysop had buggered off somewhere else. Did they have a contact number for him? No. Did they have a secure password record? No. So the 5 of us were told to sit in the cafe for the duration of the contract and do nothing. £2500 a week for 12 weeks between all of us to do nothing was better than the IT director having to admit he screwed the pooch. And £2500 in NHS speak? That's the price of a minor plastic surgery procedure.
Ironic part? I've been unable to work for years due to NHS misdiagnosis and mistreatment, at the moment I can barely move & have a tentative diagnosis of FND. So to paraphrase Angua "they got me coming & going".
This does not deal with the cultural problem which is that digital is not embedded in NHS thinking, and taking it and putting it in a separate box really doesn't help that. It will be the same people in a different box.
NHS Digital is rudderless and has not got its head around the fact that its sole purpose in life is to help clinical staff do a better job. There is zero customer awareness.
If I were doing this I would leave the existing structure and find a bunch of digital headkickers - people who have made things work and give them the resources to do more.
There is a Yes Mnster episode wth this exact plot. The minister insists on a huge efficiency program and it ends up with hundreds of extra staff being recruited to conduct the efficiency studies, produece the reports and enact the findings, causing a net increase in costs and civil service staffing levels
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