[samblr]

NHS as I understand is state owned and a well-functioning organisation. So NHS if chooses can play a huge role in global health with all the ML and health-data. Again, as you have rightly pointed its about keeping bad guys out.

[cs02rm0]

It seems remarkably well suited in concept for playing such a role. However, in this respect (among others), it's not a well-functioning organisation. It's not even just one organisation.

NHS IT is fundamentally crippled.

[cs02rm0]

Silently downvote me all you like, but only in the last month have I seen code I wrote before we even used CVS (remember that?) for source control still being used daily.

18 months ago I submitted a proposal for some software I had ready to go, happy to discuss costs but suggested a small amount (£10/user/month IIRC) with a costed business plan showing the savings it could make. They declined it, fine, but then gave the proposal document to an in house developer who's been working full time on it since and still hasn't even shown a line of code to anyone.

I'd tried to get national level innovation funding for that so the local organisation wouldn't have to pay for it. NHS innovation money is only available for proven software. By which I mean having a full system tested by clinicians and ready to go isn't enough; it has to already be in production use to be innovation!

The last couple of months a marketing agency have been trying to sell some software I've written across the NHS to help people collaborate, but they just can't do it. They've concluded it has to be sold to one small area at a time, literally starting in a GP surgery for something that makes most sense rolled out across the organisation. Before I approached the marketing agency I'd contacted the front door email of about 5 NHS IT organisations claiming to help suppliers improve the NHS about how to start the ball rolling; none of them got back to me.

There's a clue to the fractured nature of the NHS in the article linked elsewhere in the comments about Google getting AI data; they've only been able to get the data for 1.6 million patients. The NHS deal with that many patients in 2-3 days.

A month or two ago their email hit national headlines for going into meltdown after someone spammed most of the staff with the mailing list in CC and they all ended up replying to all to ask to be removed from the list.

I could drone on. But maybe you get the point.