Dear NHS, I admire you but you can’t hear me

I genuinely and profoundly admire the NHS. It’s under-funded and frequently under-appreciated. But it’s caught in that terrible trap of not having the time to improve. It’s attractive to think that it doesn’t have the budget either, but I believe that there’s a surprisingly simple solution to both problems, if only I could find the right ear with the time to hear it.

This was brought home to me last week. My son needed a copy of a series of MRI scans made a couple of months ago; the reasons for this aren’t relevant just now. After some back-and-forth, his request was actioned and he awaited some form of digital transfer. Instead, a CD arrived through the post. Like many people, he no longer has the means to read CDs, but fortunately his Dad’s an old fart.

Stapled to the CD case was a slip of paper telling me that a password was needed to read the contents. To obtain this, I should send an email to the address given, stating the patient ID and CD burn date, both of which were printed on the CD label. I sent the email on Friday and today received the password. I emailed from an address they wouldn’t have recognised, using identity data the NHS had provided. In fairness, I was also asked for Tom’s address, but this was on the envelope containing the CD.

The password worked, but I needed to install a .NET component on my computer to read it. After a machine restart I was able to view the content, which included many technical functions useful to a surgeon, but no means of export to a standard graphics format.

The security holes in the above process need no amplification. But think also of the work and cost involved in fulfilling Tom’s request. A CD needed to be burnt. That’s a consumable and around ten minutes of someone’s time. Then it needed to be posted - more time, consumables and cost. My email needed to be read and the password provided - I strongly suspect that the reply I received was created manually.

The end result would not have met the needs of most members of the public, leading to further correspondence and manual operations. Now apply this to an underfunded, overworked organisation serving 69 million people. How many times a day does this happen, and how much does it cost?

For some months, I’ve been trying to get the attention of someone with the time to hear an easily implemented and already proven solution that could be delivering significant time and cost savings before the end of 2025, and potentially providing unification and interactivity across the entire distributed network before the end of 2026, funded entirely (many times over) by the savings it returns. The CD sketch above is a very minor example of the distractions it would remove. More about it here.

This isn’t a criticism of NHS leadership. I appreciate the challenges you face and understand that it’s hard to justify wasting an hour to listen to yet another hare-brained scheme. But risk that hour and you might just win that battle.