This was fairly extensively reported at the time, but the news faded
very quickly as it was not terribly exciting. One of the reasons that
the fire was so difficult to deal with was that it was in a tunnel under
Manchester designed to withstand a Hiroshima sized atom bomb!
One of the factors is the train crash problem. 50 people die in a train
crash outside Paddington and their is a public enquiry, massive fines
and review of safety procedures.
50 people die in 50 crashes on the M4 and you never hear about them.
Similarly in this case IT would be affected. The cash machines were out.
But how often are cash machines out anyway. Does massive communication
failure affect the national cash machine availablity significantly over
5 years.
Equally how many surgeries have server problems each day. Would having a
server farm with on site technicians reduce this more than the risk of a
distributed system?
There are many flaws in the NPfIT approach to centrally held records. I
am, however, unconvinced that communications infrastructure is one of them.
--
Gavin
Mary Hawking wrote:
> Dear GP UK,
> This came from a different source on 4.4.04 - and is posted here with
> Karen's permission.
> The question needing answering is in her second to last paragraph: what
> happens with central servers when the infrastructure becomes
> non-functional? Manchester appears to have been accidental -
> infrastructure damage can be deliberate.
> Central servers may be safe - that isn't the question here: with remote
> storage, communicating links become mission critical!
> MaryH
>
> Hi all
> I have been asked by my nearest and dearest to let you all know about
> the difficulties over the last week in Buxton. Loss of phone links for 3
> days due to fire in Manchester resulted in chaos here. Little reported
> in the press, probably because it was up north.
> No cash available, banks closed , shops and garages only able to take
> cash which of course you couldn't get cos the banks and cash points were
> closed.
> No 999 calls, no NHS direct. Only one moblie phone network worked. OOH
> co-op functioned only because we had an orange phone they could use.
> Anyway to get to the point. How would the NPfIT solution of central
> servers fair under such circumstances. Would there still be a sever with
> patient data held in each practice.
> Am I asking impossible questions??
> Cheers
> Karen
>
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