Microsoft chairman Bill Gates is to tell a select group of NHS
chief executives how the software giant can help the NHS modernise
its IT at an exclusive conference on 6 December arranged by the
Department of Health.
The department said Gates would be talking on, "how Microsoft will
be working with the NHS to improve NHS IT".
According to Jenny Duff, public sector industry manager at
Microsoft, the aim is "to get chief executives involved in the
implementation of IT and not just delegate".
Gates will speak alongside a heavyweight NHS line-up including
health secretary Alan Milburn, health service chief executive Nigel
Crisp, and head of NHS research and development Professor Sir John
Pattison.
The Gates speech is one of a series of public sector events, to be
held in the same hotel, on 6 December.
Invitations have been sent to 150 specially chosen NHS chief
executives, about a third of the total. "We're targeting the middle
ground," said Duff.
The conference follows October's Enterprise Agreement between the
NHS and Microsoft.
Computer Weekly understands that Microsoft offered the NHS the
opportunity to be addressed by Gates during negotiations on the
deal.
Some health IT industry insiders believe that Gates' personal
appearance forms part of efforts - by both Microsoft and the DoH -
to bed down the October deal on NHS-wide software subscription and
extract maximum public relations value from it.
Others point out that the NHS contract is a done deal, and question
whether it offers a sufficiently compelling reason on its own for
Gates to come to London.
Gates' presence may be linked to Microsoft's ongoing dialogue with
top echelons of the UK Government on how the software giant can
help deliver NHS modernisation, and may even provide the platform
for a major announcement.
"We expect Milburn to make some big announcements," confirmed Duff,
adding that the event would address public-private partnerships in
their broader sense.
A senior NHS IT figure confirmed to Computer Weekly that Microsoft
was making strong representations to the Government that
modernisation could only happen if key areas of NHS IT were
contracted out.
A consortium of technology firms could be handed a geographic area
and given central funding to implement the NHS IT strategy, he
suggested.
Murray Bywater, director of analyst firm Silicon Bridge Research,
said that big IT firms like Microsoft had a lot to offer. "You need
heavyweight people to put in heavyweight systems, and the
Government is impatient to see results," he added.
But big firms were no panacea, Bywater said, and the NHS had been
badly burned with centrally imposed IT systems in the past.