WINDOW BLINDS

Posted on 21 Jan 2005 at 17:12

 

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He may be nearly blind, but Mel Croucher isn't nearly as short-sighted as the IT advisers at the Department of Health

I'm such a damned fool and a bloody hypocrite. My foolishness is demonstrated by a dogged refusal to consult a doctor about any aspect of my health since I left school. My hypocrisy is evident in the many articles I have written about the health hazards of sitting in front of a computer screen, while spending half my life sitting in front of a computer screen. And now the destruction of my retinas is incurable, and I will be blind within five years unless my condition can be controlled. Unfortunately it cannot be cured. So it is that I have become involved with the National Health Service at long last, and why I'm taking an interest in its future.

The NHS is the largest procurer of IT services in the whole world, with a mind-boggling budget for the computer systems that file and track every one of us from cradle to grave. On the day I got the news that I should brush up on my piano-tuning skills, the government took the disastrous decision to lock the NHS into Windows and Microsoft Office for the next nine years, and they proudly announced a deal for 900,000 licences for customised suites of Windows and Office for all NHS computer users. As well as all the hospitals and clinics, this foists Microsoft on to every GP practice and health service supplier currently using a rival system, whether it is commercial or open source, and nine years is an unprecedented length for any software licence deal, let alone the biggest one ever.

HACKED OFF

To be honest with you, it is not the money that fuels this rant, because I have paid my income tax and National Insurance contributions for the past 40 years in the full knowledge that it was being squandered on second-rate solutions by third-rate administrators. No, what enrages me is that the new Windows-based NHS will be brought to its knees not by ageing old farts like me but by the incurable flaws in Microsoft security. The threat from juvenile hackers is undeniable. They have already proved they can knacker Windows-based organisations from British Airways to the UK Coastguard service. And attack from professionals is now an open invitation for the foreseeable future. The White House Homeland Security Adviser believes Osama bin Laden is concentrating on computer terrorism to bring down the social cohesion of the West, the North Koreans are training computer hackers for the same purpose, and nobody knows how many disgruntled ex-employees or rival software companies are working on similar ways to bring down Microsoft.

The saddest thing of all is that I'm only one of hundreds of scribblers and advisers who are warning the Department of Health of the consequences of their illogical, expensive and rotten decision. It is not that they are unaware of the implications, it is that they really do not give a shit. It will be a field day for the hackers, a field hospital for any survivors. I will be seeing you.

Author: Mel Croucher