Background : NHS IT provider McKesson uses Linux to cut IT costs, 12 December 2007

In 2004, health care software vendor McKesson Provider Technologies began focusing on ways to cut IT costs for customers, including hospitals and medical offices and that meant Linux.

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Background : UK Government criticised for stifling open source in schools, 19 December 2006

OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE is being kept out of schools through government policy which "stifles innovation and locks users into high cost software," open sorcerers claim.

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Policy : Open Source Software, 28 October 2004

The key decisions of this policy are as follows:

• UK Government will consider OSS solutions alongside proprietary ones in IT
procurements. Contracts will be awarded on a value for money basis.

• UK Government will only use products for interoperability that support open
standards and specifications in all future IT developments.

• UK Government will seek to avoid lock-in to proprietary IT products and services.

• UK Government will consider obtaining full rights to bespoke software code or
customisations of COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) software it procures
wherever this achieves best value for money.

• Publicly funded R&D projects which aim to produce software outputs shall specify
a proposed software exploitation route at the start of the project. At the
completion of the project, the software shall be exploited either commercially or
within an academic community or as OSS.2

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Background : Tories would decentralise state information, says David Cameron, 4 April 2008

Tory leader David Cameron has said that the Conservatives would avoid large-scale central IT systems such as the NHS National Programme for IT.

Cameron also praised open-source development, saying it would help smaller companies grow.

“We will follow private sector best practice which is to introduce open standards that enables IT contracts to be split up into modular components," he said.

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Background : Processing electronic claims, 25 September 2007

NHS Connecting for Health will provide two electronic mailboxes to which data files of claims maybe submitted by ophthalmic contractors. Data files must be in the form of attachments to e-mails.

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Background : NHS Connecting for Health announces deal with Novell, 2 August 2007

NHS Connecting for Health has negotiated a £21.8m agreement with infrastructure and software services supplier Novell which will save the NHS up to £75 million over three years, compared to previous arrangements.

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Background : NHS to trial Sun's Linux desktop, 17 December 2003

NHS IT Director General Richard Granger has ordered a trial of Sun Microsystems' Linux-based Java Desktop system as part of the NPfIT.

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Background : Doctors prefer Linux to Windows, 23 May 2003

The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) has chosen a secure Linux-based server solution for the bulk emailing of 6,000 GPs across the UK, after a decision not to use Windows.

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Background : Novell to Provide Security, Systems Management and Linux to United Kingdom's National Health Service, 2 December 2005

Novell today announced a £21.8 million ($39 million) contract with the United Kingdom's leading Department of Health agency for a comprehensive set of security, management and infrastructure solutions that will improve delivery of health services to UK citizens. The three year agreement with the National Health Service (NHS) Connecting for Health program lets NHS leverage Novell® solutions across the entire NHS infrastructure, comprising upwards of 600,000 workstations, and will result in substantial cost savings for the NHS. As a strategic partner, Novell will help the NHS deliver its National Programme for IT, improving patient care and services and transforming the way the NHS works.

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Background : NHS continues open source software trials, 15 July 2005

The NHS in England will continue to test free-to-use "open source" software, despite paying to run Microsoft software on some 550,000 desktop computers.

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