INDUSTRY WATCH
WHILE POCKETS OF
INNOVATION ARE EVIDENT
WITHIN THE NHS, SUCH
AS THE ALDER HEY
CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL
USING IBM WATSON,
PUBLIC CLOUD ADOPTION
IS LESS THAN HALF THAT OF
CENTRAL GOVERNMENT’S.
T
he Cloud First policy is an
important statement of the
government’s digitalisation
initiative and a wider push to be ‘cloud
native’. Indeed, the Government Digital
Service (GDS) has suggested that IT teams
should create ‘resilient, flexible and API-
driven’ applications and is encouraging
any staff in defence, government, or the
NHS to trial new Software-as-a-Service
(SaaS) applications.
While a significant statement of the
government’s intent, with over £2.6
billion spent on cloud and digital services
over the last five years, adoption to date
remains comparatively low. Just 30% of
NHS and 61% of central government
entities have adopted some level of
public cloud, according to a recent FOI
request conducted by SolarWinds. Even
the Ministry of Defence (MOD), which has
adopted some public cloud, stated it had
migrated less than 25% of its architecture.
Meanwhile, public cloud mistrust remains
high in the public sector. Forty one percent
of central government organisations, as
well as 79% of NHS trusts, do not plan to
move everything to the cloud. This speaks
to the many challenges that the public
sector still faces with cloud adoption. The
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onus now falls on the GDS and technology
vendors to address these issues, which
are integral to enabling the public sector
to put cloud technology in place. In turn,
this will hasten the time to positive results
and ROI.
Striking differences between NHS
and government cloud adoption
One of the most striking findings is
the differing sentiments around public
cloud voiced by the NHS and central
government. While pockets of innovation
are evident within the NHS, such as the
Alder Hey Children’s Hospital using IBM
Watson, public cloud adoption is less than
half that of central government’s.
Between April and December 2017, NHS
Digital spent over £32 million on digital
transformation consultancy services.
Additionally, £23 million was spent with
cloud, software, or hardware providers.
Given the low rate of NHS public cloud
adoption, it would seem that this
investment is not reaching individual
organisations. Fifty two percent of NHS
trusts report budgets as a major concern
when it comes to implementing public
cloud. This rises to 66% among trusts
who had already implemented some level
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