More than 200,000 NHS devices still running Windows 7

More than 20 per cent of NHS Trusts have no plans to migrate away from Windows 7, support for which ends in January

NHS Trusts are still using more than 200,000 devices running the 10-year-old Window 7 operating system, which is due to reach End of Life next year.

That's according cloud computing firm Citrix, which recently obtained the information through a Freedom of Information (FoI) request.

Citrix issued the request to 98 NHS Trusts across the UK, of which 77 responded.

According to Citrix, 52 per cent of the total 447,000+ NHS devices, including desktops, laptops, and tablets, are still running Windows 7.

The positive news is that 78 per cent of NHS organisations are currently working to migrate their systems to Windows 10 within the next six months, and another six per cent of Trusts are considering migrating in the near future.

23 per cent of the trusts responding to the FoI request said 10 or more applications they use on their systems still need remediation to ensure ease of use and stability when moving to Windows 10.

Fewer than a quarter (23 per cent) said they had already deployed, or were planning to deploy, cloud or virtualisation technology to help migrate from Windows 7 to Windows 10. The use of these technologies will help NHS Trusts in centralising the management of desktop environments, thereby leading to a more efficient and cost effective migration.

"The NHS is unquestionably dedicated to delivering first-class patient services," said Matt Smith, Director, Public Sector, UK & Ireland, Citrix.

"Yet prolonged austerity is putting it under even more pressure to do more with less."

"Given the additional security considerations that come with outdated technology, migrating to Windows 10 within the 'next six months' could be too little, too late. Ensuring IT infrastructure is up-to-date and secure is necessary to both better support NHS staff in their day-to-day jobs and ensure first-class healthcare services in the UK."

Baby steps

While the use of Window 7 in such large numbers across the NHS is not an uplifting situation, it does appear to be better that the situation in July, when the Department of Health and Social Care revealed that over 1 million NHS computers were still using Windows 7.

At that time, Jo Platt MP, shadow cabinet office minister, drew attention to the 2017 WannaCry attacks on NHS systems that led to cancellation of thousands of appointments.

The government was also criticised over the fact that some NHS machines were still running Windows XP, support for which ended nearly five years ago.

Microsoft ended mainstream support for Windows 7 in January 2015, and also announced later that the extended support for the OS will end on 14th January 2020. Since that time, the company has been urging Windows 7 users to migrate to Windows 10.

In August, the company said it would be offering some business customers free Windows 7 extended security updates for one year.

Earlier this year, Google urged Windows 7 users to shift to Windows 10, following the discovery of a zero-day security flaw. The company said it had observed several attacks combining a patched security flaw in Google's Chrome web browser with the win32k.sys privilege escalation flaw. According to Google researchers, that particular security flaw only affected the Windows 7 operating system.