NHS: Computer Software

(asked on 12th October 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, which part of (a) PHE or (b) Serco was using the old Excel format which led to NHS TEst and Trace reporting error; and whether his Department has undertaken an audit of the use of obsolete applications in the NHS.


Answered by
Helen Whately Portrait
Helen Whately
Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
This question was answered on 18th November 2020

Public Health England has taken action to ensure that all software is maintained with necessary updates. The IT incident related to a failure in the process for moving files between different IT systems and was not caused by a failure to update software. Increased testing volumes meant that some Excel files used in the transfer process exceeded the file size threshold and so were not uploaded. The appropriateness of IT systems used continues to be regularly reviewed and improvements made where needed.

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