[DanBC]

> It's someone's existing job to do IT,

That would be Simon Eccles at NHSX. https://twitter.com/NHSCCIO

NHSX is reasonably new. https://www.nhsx.nhs.uk/

They've been having some trouble recruiting and retaining staff. https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/europe/nhsx-reviews-st...

I do feel that you haven't understood the complexity of the landscape. Not of the vendors, because in theory we could just impose standards of interoperability upon them with RFC like documents. But the complexity of NHS providers. There are thousands of GPs, hundreds of NHS trusts, and they've all got to talk to each other while providing strong access controls and audits.

EDIT: I don't normally ask about downvotes, but I'm curious about the votes in this post, and I'd be grateful for any explanation about downvoting.

[arpinum]

Their pay is 30% below market, so they wind up blowing even more money on contractors. I’m pretty sure increasing pay will save them a chunk of change, but the NHS ties itself up in knots to prevent sensible changes.

[MrMorden]

If they're only 30% below market, the NHS is in a lot better shape than many government organizations.

[inferiorhuman]

They've been having some trouble recruiting and retaining staff.

And yet I didn't see any obvious job openings. I didn't see an obvious way of checking civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk as neither NHSX nor National Health… turned up any results when plugging them into the organization filter. It's an interesting mission, but if they're not hiring then I can only imagine they're starved for funding or they've successfully retained enough folks.

[toyg]

> if they're not hiring then I can only imagine they're starved for funding

The overall context is a government that has been openly antagonistic to the NHS for at least a decade, pushed for disastrously expensive "privatisation by stealth" efforts [0][1][2], and is now effectively trying to outsource the digital side of NHS operations to private companies [3]. Strategically starving certain departments is par for the course.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/apr/04/gp-local-nhs...

[1] https://the-probe.co.uk/blog/2019/12/hancock-urged-to-halt-n...

[2] https://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.f1322

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_Health#Matthew_Hancock

(and many, many more sources if you really need them...)

[inferiorhuman]

The overall context is a government that has been openly antagonistic to the NHS for at least a decade, pushed for disastrously expensive "privatisation by stealth" efforts [0][1][2], and is now effectively trying to outsource the digital side of NHS operations to private companies [3]. Strategically starving certain departments is par for the course.

If the goal is to "starve the beast" NHSX isn't having trouble with retention then are they?

[DanBC]

I agree with everything you say, but GPs have always been private companies operating under NHS GP contracts, and Babylon Health isn't at all unusual in that regard.

They are a very large provider, and that's causing problems for their hosting CCG.

None of this detracts from your point: the NHS has been deliberately under-funded for years, and the Conservatives are pushing for non-NHS providers to provide services.