[SC.LUG] Open Source NHS anyone?

[Richard Smedley]

Hello George,

> That said one of the comments from a doctor (I forget where, although I
> suspect it might have been the TV documentary) was that a problem with
> the project was that they were attempting to go for a huge, complex
> national system to be rolled out to all the practices, hospitals, etc.
> whereas if they had simply defined standards for the various functions
> such as data exchange a decision could have been made at a local level
> about what systems were appropriate for their needs. 

This is the real key to the woes of this (and some other gov) project.

Also, it would be nice if the gov followed its own
project management guidelines, and used PRINCE2 ;o)

> These smaller sub
> systems would also be more likely to be developed in an open manner,
> with there being an interest to share functionality between the various
> solutions.

The same principles work in reverse, too - where local organisations in
a given field (e.g. credit unions) duplicate each other's work in
various ways, but could join together to cover the admin, software
development, publicity, etc.

 - Richard

-- 
Richard Smedley,                                         rs at m6-it.org
Technical Director,                                     www.M6-IT.org
M6-IT CIC                                        +44 (0)779 456 07 14

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