Out of Date

The BBC are reporting on the state of the monolithic project embarked upon my the NHS (the UK National Health Service) to "upgrade" much of their IT infrastructure. Many reports have come out about this (one of the best was in Private Eye a few weeks ago) and the government response is call the information behind the report "out of date". Look out for the phrase in here:

BBC NEWS | Health | 'Action needed' on NHS computers

... and also look out for it in other government responses. It's an easy one line put down of any study. If the study is done too quickly, it is classed as superficial. If the study is prepared carefully over time, of course the data behind the study is "out of date" by the time the study is published.

In this case the irony is that the project(s) that the report note are late would be reported as being even later if the data was bang up to date. No doubt the cost overruns would be higher too.

Of course, information can be out of date. But the UK government seem be using that as an excuse to ignore many insightful observations.