The Conservative’s policies for the NHS are indeed in meltdown and the idea that it is going to be possible to fix things by listening to NHS England and throwing more money at it are deluded. David Cameron precipitated the crisis by failing to back Andrew Lansley’s carefully thought out reforms by sacking him and “listening to the healthcare professionals”.
As Dr Alf knows they at directorial and managerial level are the source of the problem with the NHS along with Jeremy Hunt the Health Minister who is gullible enough to buy into the lies and special pleading of Simon Steven the CEO and Blairite appointee and those of the bewigged Chris Hopson whose utterances are no more real than his hair.
People were warned about cyber security when plans were put forward to centralise all patient records but were brushed aside.
A week ago I attended a cyber security briefing by Bedfordshire police and even that small and inefficient force envisages 350 officers focussed on cyber crime within 5 years time versus about 19 now.
Foreign powers like China have 5 million cyber warriors in the Peoples Liberation Army, Russia’s GRU has 2 million and the NSA has 1 million.
GCHQ has at best 12000 which can be inferred from the size of its buildings,the car parking arrangements and the fact that it is allowing people to leave and set up private sector companies such as Darktrace in Cambridge and Roke Manor Park in Hampshire.
As a country we are inadequately prepared to deal with this new form of asymmetric warfare and we have an inadequate state education system turning out blockheads rather than the skilled software engineers we need to combat the menace.
The NHS, the subject this post is also not fit for purpose and some indicative action is needed before root and branch reform following the General Election.
Firing Simon Steven and Chris Hopson and replacing them would be a start but a “signal ” is needed so that people do not think that this means business as usual.
For me this means appointing a CEO from the military rather than someone from the NHS – Hopson’s post as spokesman would be filled by a Bell Pottinger appointee.
It is too close to the election to fire Jeremy Hunt but someone from GCHQ if not appointed already needs to put in charge of IT and database security with Darktrace appointed to purge the network of hackers.
Mrs May has not panicked but has failed to act with sufficient speed or ruthlessness.
This lack of speed and decisiveness will cost her votes but she will probably still win after which she is going to have to step up at least 4 gears rather than dithering
John Gelmini
Dr Alf's Blog 