End-2-End Enterprise Architecture (E2EEA)’s Post

NHS England Chief Information Officer, John Quinn, recently delivered a bold yet essential message to NHS trusts: it’s time to leave behind local data centres and fully embrace the cloud. His address at the North Yorkshire and Humber Directors of Informatics Forum on 14 November 2024 highlighted a pivotal moment for the NHS's digital transformation journey. Quinn's call to action is clear: stop investing in local data centres and leverage cloud solutions offered by industry leaders like Oracle, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. These providers deliver unmatched scalability, security, and cost-efficiency. As Quinn aptly put it, “This is low-value, high-commodity stuff you shouldn’t do yourself.” What’s exciting is NHSE's proactive approach to simplifying this transition. Quinn emphasised the importance of aggregating demand across the NHS, enabling collective bargaining for national cloud computing deals. This move will eliminate fragmented, localised negotiations, ensuring better pricing and standardised solutions across the board. On 4 December 2024, NHSE, in partnership with TechUK, will launch the NHS Marketplace and Innovation Hub—a groundbreaking platform poised to transform collaboration and innovation. With a cloud-enabled infrastructure supported by Microsoft, this "app store" for the NHS will showcase reusable solutions, reduce duplication, and foster collaboration across trusts. Imagine a unified space where NHS organisations can share apps, developer toolkits, and digital workspaces—accelerating innovation while driving down costs. Oracle, as a trusted partner in healthcare, is uniquely positioned to support this shift. With decades of expertise in cloud infrastructure and healthcare solutions, Oracle can help the NHS optimise workloads, modernise systems, and ensure data integrity—all while meeting stringent regulatory requirements. At the heart of Quinn's message is a “one digital approach”, centred on patient needs. By standardising tools and leveraging cloud power, the NHS can achieve greater efficiency and focus on what matters most: patient care. With NHS Shared Business Services also securing a national framework for cloud services, the time to act is now. The NHS’s digital transformation journey is no longer an option—it’s a necessity.