Microsoft has recently urged XP users to make the upgrade to Windows 8. Well, it seems that such advice has fallen on deaf ears, at least where the UK’s National Health Service is concerned. It seems that the UK’s NHS, which can be somewhat equated to the U.S. Public Health Service, is currently discussing with Microsoft to extend support for Windows XP for its computer systems that still run on that version of the operating system.
Whitehall is negotiating a deal with Microsoft to prevent thousands of NHS computers from falling victim to hackers targeting Windows XP from April. The government and Microsoft are in talks to offer extended security support to NHS PCs running Windows XP that miss an 8 April deadline to ditch the OS. The Department of Health has exclusively told The Register it’s in talks with Microsoft to develop a migration plan to move PCs off of Windows XP. A major plank of that deal will see Microsoft offer what the DoH terms “extended support”* – at a cost. Extended support is not a cheap option and means the taxpayer will foot the bill for the NHS’s failure to hit the April deadline to move.
The UK NHS is nothing like the US Public Health Service.
Like so many press reports about the NHS this article misrepresents the situation on the ground. A large part of the NHS is using Windows 7. Where I work we have had it for 18 months. Windows 8 tablets are beginning to be used. There is a large estate of iPads and iPhones. Like any massive employer, there are pockets of legacy systems, some of which are systems critical to patient health and well being.