The DOH informatics directorate is a ****ing waste of time
rant/
They are the department that tested their latest and greatest flu line database (1 of 4 failed attempts) against the popular brownser Firefox 1.5 and 2.0 (but not 3.x), the same database that the people who designed and built it when show casing it said. "We don't think this version will do what you want, so we are looking at version 2 for that"
They are the same people that don't understand replication or live updates in SQL, so every day at 2pm one DB had to shut down to update another. Meaning every day, the entire flu pandemic response from the NHS had to have updated it's records by 2pm.
They are the same people that mean we have to run legacy systems, that require IE6 because the antiquated bag of rubbish they bought at vast expense ten years ago hasn't been replaced and we are forced to use. Yet we have to pay vast support and upgrade costs to keep it. It's not the spine thats the problem, its the contracts GP's that we now fund at great expense, their systems are whatever they want, because we have no say, yet we are meant to link up and support them.
They are the same people that think locking a spreadsheet but manually drawing 65000 lines on it is the norm', so when printed you get 318 pages of black lines. After complaining they shortened it to 10000 lines and onlu 88 pages or printing.
These are the same people that send out documentation in 2007 formats, but no-one uses 2007 because it conflicts with legacy systems.
These are the people that designed a phone line for information about the flu, 3 minutes and 50 seconds in, before you get the option of a none english speaking version. Which conflicts with their own guidelines and reaching out to the public, only to then ram down our throats that we should be doing it.
These are the same people that gave us a database for recording stock of tamiflu, that requires the internet and when we told them, that our volunteer chemists don't have internet, the DOH told us that they were therfore not allowed to volunteer. Requiring us to waste £50000 of NHS's taxpayers money to provide a service, Tesco and ASDA were doing for free.
These are the same IT people that gave me 41 minutes to train 44 staff in the use of a database before it went live, recording and checking the issuance of what is a life threatening drug with face to face interaction with the public.
They can shove their 'views' where it stings.
/rant
Guess where I work and what department I am in.