NHSbuntu takes plain Ubuntu and optimises it for the NHS
unofficial: not directly affiliated to NHS or Canonical organisations
removes packages the NHS doesn’t need
adds packages the NHS needs, develops custom elements
adds familiarity by configuring look & feel, branding etc
provides services around NHSbuntu - customisations, Disaster-recovery Live USB version, custom development.
Ubuntu is ‘Linux for Human Beings’
A more friendly wrapper around Linux
Backed by Canonical, who provide support services
The most popular Linux variant, with millions of deployments worldwide
We have taken Ubuntu and pre-configured it to work with the NHS’s most common needs and requirements.
A free, open source UNIX based operating system
Released 1991 by Linus Torvalds, Finnish Computer Science student
Now running on 96.6% of the world’s top 1 million websites
It’s the operating system inside Android devices and Chromebook laptops
It’s used by the giants of the web including Amazon, Facebook and Google
Apple, Oracle, and IBM all use free UNIX variants
£700 to license a new machine
1300 machines / organisation
5 year lifetime of applications
>500 'major' sized organisations in NHS (CCG + Acutes + MH)
source: best guessing, CIO interviews, and http://www.nhsconfed.org/resources/key-statistics-on-the-nhs
legacy clinical apps with pre-Win10 dependencies
no resources to migrate off those legacy clinical apps
increasing security risk from these older dependencies
NHSbuntu proposes to wrap WinXP legacy software in virtual machines
Windows 7 End Of Support: January 14th 2020
New hardware will not work with older Windows versions
Old hardware may not perform well with Win 10
Clinical apps may not work with Win10 or Edge
1) You have to migrate to Win10 before 2020
2) You have to replace all legacy clinical apps before 2020, to do 1)
3) You need to upgrade all your hardware in order to do 2)
You can’t afford to do 1), 2), and 3) at the same time (cash/staff/training)
You’re stuck.
Windows 10 sends data to Microsoft in over 30 ways (incl raw keystrokes)
This can be over-ridden in your org - but it is extra work, and not easy
Third party / home PCs accessing NHSMail, VPNing into trust systems are beyond organisational controls, and may leak data, so as we develop wider data sharing, it will be impossible to prevent keystrokes being sent to Redmond, WA, USA.
We may not be able to stop privacy-critical PID keystroke data being sent to Microsoft via Windows 10 PCs
(discuss)
Libre Office suite
NHSmail2 Email
Modern browsers Firefox & Chromium/Chrome
Windows ‘shared drive’ (eek)
Network printers
Scanner app / drivers
Active Directory Support
PAS (Patient Administration Systems)
EPR (Electronic Patient Record)
GP Clinical Systems
Clinical portals
NHS National Services on Spine:
Summary Care Record
e-Referral Service
Patient Demographic Services
The worldwide cyberattack on 12th May 2017, which hit NHS badly
Was well timed for us in terms of publicity
We didn’t do it, honest guv BUT
NHSbuntu (as with all Linux) would not have been vulnerable
NHSbuntu in even low-volume use could have provided herd immunity
Linux is not proof against all malware, but its attack surface is smaller and it’s (arguably) harder to do real nasty stuff
harness the off-duty CPU/GPU of every NHS computer, by including a swarm client in NHSbuntu by default
eg Folding@home - a distributed protein folding computation platform
Are there other good projects?
Could we grow UK-based projects for the platform?
Bioinformaticians deal in big genomic/phenotypic data
They routinely use Linux and OSS for this
But they often have to maintain honorary contracts with the local University in order to get Linux installed on a machine they can use for work
NHSbuntu could solve this for them by obtaining 'NHS-wide' premission for use & packaging commonly-required Bioinformatics software in a metapackage for them
Native Linux Identity Agent (for NHS Spine Smart cards)
Automated build chain tooling so we can programmatically make changes to image definition files and have the ISOs build and test automatically.
Exploration of the ‘NHSbuntu for Disaster Recovery’ use-case
Performance testing of LiveUSB version on fast USBdrives/USB SSD
Discovery work regarding different desktop environments - we’re thinking of switching to Cinnamon DE (from Gnome3 DE)
download the ISO, install and play!
read more here: www.nhsbuntu.org
join our Slack team
tell people about NHSbuntu
Follow us on Twitter @nhsbuntu