NHS to be switched over to open source1 April 2011 Jon HoeksmaIn...

NHS to be switched over to open source
1 April 2011 Jon Hoeksma

In a stunning U-turn the government has today announced that the NHS will be switched en masse to open source clinical systems in just 12-months time.

On the stroke of midnight, 1 April, 2012, all NHS trusts will have to simultaneously switch all of their current systems to a new open source clinical system, which will be developed specifically for the health service over the next six months. The project is codenamed Mastadon.

Eschewing existing highly successful open source clinical systems, most notably the US Veteran Administration?s Vista system, the British government has decided to pay to have an NHS-specific ?open source? system built for it from the ground up.

?Open source is a great option for the NHS, the software is free and supported by a highly capable international community who work together collaboratively,? said one insider. ?We?ve decided that the NHS is exceptional though and rather than use any of the proven systems available we will build our own system from scratch. We?ve being very open about that.?

NHS organisations will be charged an open market rate to use the locked down standardised Mastadon system, and face punative penalties if they don?t. The hope is to sell Mastadon around the world.

Adopting a radical clean slate policy the government has determined that no-one with any previous healthcare experience should work on the project for fear of past ?contamination?.

EHI understands that a mega-billion Mastadon contract has already been awarded to Leviathan Systems Development Corporation following a pretty nifty power-point presentation to ministers.

One insider present at the key meeting said ?It was a great presentation, it had a video clip, a picture of some paper patient records that had fallen of a shelf and a Dilbert cartoon,? the minister was really impressed.

Binding contracts have already been signed that irrevocably commit all parts of the health service to the national system, whether or not it is delivered on time.

As part of his commitment to devolution in the NHS the Secretary of State has he will personally micro-manage all aspects of the project personally. A big red box with a plunger on the top is to be installed in his office to enable him to ensure the big bang happens.

In an unusual step the contracting authority has on the advice of its consultants Avarice and McGreen decided not to set a detailed specification or statement of requirements. Instead LSP Corp is required to deliver an ?imaginative, paradigm shifting, 360 solution platform cloud?, based on their re-imagination of an old postcard of a Greek temple.

Learning crucial lessons from the recent NHS IT programme a consultation process to secure essential clinical buy-in will be launched sometime late in the summer when everyone is away.

A poorly place source told EHI: ?The Cabinet Office may be pushing for smaller less ambitious IT projects but the Department of Health knows better. Its decided that the real problem with the ?12.7 billion National Programme for IT in the NHS was that it wasn?t sufficiently big or ambitious enough.?

The source added: ?We said the NHS needed saving and with this project it really will. Anyway if it all goes wrong we can always blame it on the Liberal Democrats.?

One trust IT director told EHI: ?We?re half-way through a three year NPfIT implementation; are about to become a foundation trust; have to deliver huge efficiency gains and have to cope with the new NHS market. Is this some sort of joke

http://www.ehi.co.uk/news/acute-care/6770/nhs_to_be_switched_over_to_open_source