Monday, October 02, 2006
GAH!!! Me and my big mouth - NHS rant #2
I dont believe it. Just as I say that someone is about to get spanked they walk away scott free -
Accenture escapes £1bn penalty for NHS walk-out | The Register
£1bn penalty? Come on now, force them to pay the penalty, hand it over to me, Jordan and I will go sew this baby up, then start our own fund with whats left over!!!! Grrr....
Accenture escapes £1bn penalty for NHS walk-out | The Register
£1bn penalty? Come on now, force them to pay the penalty, hand it over to me, Jordan and I will go sew this baby up, then start our own fund with whats left over!!!! Grrr....
Friday, September 29, 2006
The British National Health Service saga
GAH - Accenture heads for NHS exit | Channel Register
So someone is finally getting fired for the balls up that is the NHS record database central repository project or whatever that thing is called. I may be oversimplifying this, but my understanding is that the project was to create a central database to store all patient records and medical history and provide every GP in the country with the ability to access it.
The thing that kills me is that the budget for this is now at a whopping 12.5bn gbp. People, we are talking about 23,300,380,353.94 USD (xe.com). HOW!
So I work in Finance and occasionally feel like a morally devoid worm as I don't really benefit mankind. Then I look at projects like the NHS database and think to myself - there is something I can do and feel good about myself. Setting up a replicated database environment to record 60 million records (rough population of UK) and then provide secure access to this sounds like a vaguely interesting project. I have done things similar to do this at a couple of places now and let me tell you it aint that hard. It sure as hell aint 23.3bn USD hard. In finance we do this all the time to record things like every market tick for a variety of instruments, tracking every second of every trading day since 1980 for example. You get to 60 million records awfully fast. i.e. the NHS project is not breaking new ground from a technology perspective. Everything they need for infrastructure is available off the shelf and the coding around the outside of it is bread and butter for every IT colleague I have ever known.
I am so frustrated seeing these news articles swing by, wishing I could just jump in there as project manager and start again. However, Jordan shouted at me and told me it would be the worst thing I could ever do for my own morale. The reason being that stupid government contracts are no place for technologists to do anything. The money just goes into bureaucracy and management and they cheap out on all the IT staff and equipment.
I hate the world at times.....
If anyone at the NHS is reading this though, if you fire everyone and start again with me, I am pretty sure I could get this job done comfortably with 1bn GBP and still retire a rich man....
So someone is finally getting fired for the balls up that is the NHS record database central repository project or whatever that thing is called. I may be oversimplifying this, but my understanding is that the project was to create a central database to store all patient records and medical history and provide every GP in the country with the ability to access it.
The thing that kills me is that the budget for this is now at a whopping 12.5bn gbp. People, we are talking about 23,300,380,353.94 USD (xe.com). HOW!
So I work in Finance and occasionally feel like a morally devoid worm as I don't really benefit mankind. Then I look at projects like the NHS database and think to myself - there is something I can do and feel good about myself. Setting up a replicated database environment to record 60 million records (rough population of UK) and then provide secure access to this sounds like a vaguely interesting project. I have done things similar to do this at a couple of places now and let me tell you it aint that hard. It sure as hell aint 23.3bn USD hard. In finance we do this all the time to record things like every market tick for a variety of instruments, tracking every second of every trading day since 1980 for example. You get to 60 million records awfully fast. i.e. the NHS project is not breaking new ground from a technology perspective. Everything they need for infrastructure is available off the shelf and the coding around the outside of it is bread and butter for every IT colleague I have ever known.
I am so frustrated seeing these news articles swing by, wishing I could just jump in there as project manager and start again. However, Jordan shouted at me and told me it would be the worst thing I could ever do for my own morale. The reason being that stupid government contracts are no place for technologists to do anything. The money just goes into bureaucracy and management and they cheap out on all the IT staff and equipment.
I hate the world at times.....
If anyone at the NHS is reading this though, if you fire everyone and start again with me, I am pretty sure I could get this job done comfortably with 1bn GBP and still retire a rich man....
Thursday, September 14, 2006
BROWN? Has Microsoft learned NOTHING?Microsoft has announced that its Zune digital music player will be released in the US in time for Christmas.
Unveiling more details of the player, which it hopes will rival Apple's iPod, Microsoft said the Zune will come in three colours - black, white and brown.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5347112.stm
