Let's hope that the Office Suite does not get infected by a hospital bourne Super Bug!

It already is. It's called Windows.

That's almost $627 per seqt.

Outlook is not worth that much.

Our government is well known for spunking away vast sums on hugely overpriced and defective products from dodgy suppliers: PPE, aircraft carriers with no aircraft, Rwandan holiday homes, Bojo's lawyers, ferry companies with no ships, etc. This M$ deal is just another in that long list.

Microsoft advertises Office subscription direct to consumers at £59.99 (c $76) per year, while the NHS deal works out at roughly £100 ($136.50) per user per year.

Kerching! Trebles and bonuses all round

In the mean time, cut down on patient care and staff costs

I presume the NHS deal is based on Microsoft 365 E5, full price is £52.40 user/month and charity/nonprofit £20.20 user/month.

Which would still seem to be a lot for Teams and email, given the majority of staff would only be using the medical applications and entering patient data directly into these.

It's not just teams and email, they're offering things like intune as well and external phone calling. It all has to be integrated into the NHS Mail admin portal too which essentially just runs powershell commands on their tenant when you tick a box etc.

It also covers 34 months, so basically comes out a little under £1m/day.

Now that MS has access to everyone's health records...

"It looks like you're having a suspicious polyp removed and your doctor is concerned you won't make it. Do you need help updating your Last Will and Testament? If so, here's a list of legal firms near you. Otherwise, we can suggest three funeral homes with discounts if you pre-book." *blink* *blink*

And what, pray, may that be if it's provided by Microsoft? A long piece of rope connected to the desktop plug to yank it out of the socket?

Judging from the large amount of breaches and ransomwware they have presided over it can't be anything more sophisticated.

Anyway, say bye bye to the privacy of your medical data.

That was already taken care of with Palantir.

"Microsoft and security" go together like "Oceangate and safety".

Very dark humour, but I think a bit too soon.

That said, some of the memes I have already seen online appeared earlier so maybe it's just me.

And are all these NHS staff going to be trained properly so that they can *efficiently* use their new software? Or will they just be left to get on with it in the style of simian Shakespearians? One can only imagine the length of the ever increasing phone queues as admin staff struggle to adapt to all the changes.

Disclaimer: I'm particularly jaded with the quality of admin staff as my partner's hospital appointment letters have just been delivered to her ex-husband's address, despite him moving to his latest girlfriend's house 10 miles away. Yes, yes GDPR and all that, but seriously, what's the point of trying to complain.

Remember when you purchased a license for M$ Office, pay it once, and then keep using it for ages? PHBs drank the subscription kool-aid with such enthusiasm.

"But sir, you are not getting the latest and greatest features!"

Which interest, like, no one.

"But sir, you are vulnerable to security threats without constant updates!"

If a word processor is so darn dangerous, then we should switch to something more innocuous. Also, if we find a bug, does that mean they commit to fix it or give us a full refund? (You already know the answer.)

but an astonishing amount of comments here don't seem to know that MS Office is the new name for the entire online service formerly known as Office 365 - not 365 apps which is what the new name for Office suite(nothing like a confusing Microsoft renaming!). So this is 1TB of storage online per user plus unlimited email archiving (effectively) plus everything else so sounding like telephony inc VoIP via teams to standard lines, Intune, a large threat protection suite (which isn't actually that rubbish) for Mail, documents and connected machines AND a load of other bits too which some are quite useful (not all..).

Certainly not the equivalent of the £60 pa personal plan, more likely the e5 full caboodle which is more like £50 pcm normally.

Sounds like a good deal, excepting the usual MS 'changes' and the eggs in one basket side of things but for normal users on windows it's actually rather sensible. NOW if the NHS had it's own build of Linux and internal team to support that plus a good telephony provider for VOIP, etc, etc.. we'd have an alternative (so wish this would happen, they are so big it would revolutionise the use of Linux in the workspace for ordinary users).However, as it is the 6m pound gorilla who we know and can publicly be shamed to some extent will have to do and is not the worst solution possible.