iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 21/09/2026

FT story (paywalled - sorry) - totally unacceptable interference from the then- #NHSEngland Data Chief (Ming Tang) in the National Data Guardian's report on #Palantir #FederatedDataPlatform. giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... @coricrider.com @roylilley1.bsky.social @doctorow.pluralistic.net

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 10/09/2026

Today is #Gibraltar National Day! Putting aside the many layers of politics around that contested piece of land, I'm lucky enough to have #GibraltarianStatus through my father, and so here in York we are celebrating with #Rosto and #Calentita, two culinary delights which are Pure Gib.

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 06/09/2026

Law is a kind of 'computer program' for the functions of a state. Reading @doctorow.pluralistic.net's account of how Mitch Glazier "snuck a clause into must-pass legislation", it struck me that in tech terms this would be a 'Supply Chain Attack' on the law. pluralistic.net/2026/09/02/s...

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 20/08/2026

Genius move by #UKHomeOffice - by pretending these messages were for #migrants they've got them TaBlOiD FrOnT PaGe, and made thousands of Daily Mail and Daily Express readers read and inadvertently learn about consent and non-violence. 👌

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 09/08/2026

Ugh. Gross. #eventim #seetickets I don't know when it became acceptable to describe a musical gig/concert as 'product' but there is a special hell for those people who made it so.

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 06/08/2026

Also the #NHSEngland 'Canonical' Data Model is now 6 months out of date, when the repo says it will be updated monthly from changes to a (presumably) fast-moving FDP data model. The very fact they are updating periodically from somewhere else *proves* the CDM repo is not the 'source of truth'.

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 26/07/2026

I'm loving using @mattpocock.com's /teach command to learn music theory & ear-train! Learning bits of music theory for >40 years has left me with gaps, & books repeat what I already know. /teach targets the GAPS 🎯 github.com/mattpocock/s... (my setup: opencode / zed / GLM-5.2 / Ollama cloud)

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 22/07/2026

osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/news/nhs-eng... Worth a read. It is a sad testament to the culture at NHS England that they would deliberately mislead the public and the profession by claiming causal relationships between FDP and 'benefits' that may not exist.

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 20/07/2026

#NHSEngland seem to think they can fluff the figures on #FDP adoption and nobody will notice. Vague notions like "Trust X are signed up for FDP" is not evidence of *benefit* from #FDP. But FDP comms, driven by politics not science, doesn't care www.medact.org/2026/resourc... @medact.bsky.social

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 06/07/2026

Let's see if I'm wrong: Before rollout "NHS England to speed up rollout of app AI triage tool to reduce GP demand" After rollout "GP demand spikes, patients sick to fucking death of AI and quite reasonably want to see a human GP" www.pulsetoday.co.uk/news/technol... #pulsegp #nhsapp

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 29/06/2026

Other Issues Analysts are flagging: "...even with additional power and code optimisation recommendations, processing time reported as taking 4-5 minutes compared to 30 seconds in UDAL." @theguardian.com @greenparty.org.uk @zackpolanski.bsky.social

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 29/06/2026

This is a briefing slide set shown to NHSE SLT about Palantir Foundry (the FDP) released via FOI "Large proportion (not all!) concerned with proprietary software" www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/pala... @doctorow.pluralistic.net @foxglovelegal.bsky.social

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 18/05/2026

NHS England's Digital Data and Technology Committee has posted two reports of its meetings (March 2026 and December 2025), *neither of which* mention open source as a cybersecurity risk. Dec 2025 www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/di... March 2025 www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/bo...

Cyber and resilience
1. Two papers were reviewed covering the NHS England Resilience Programme and the Cyber Accelerator. The committee noted significant overlap between the two, with insufficient alignment between the teams. Strategic and policy decisions will be consolidated within the Cyber Accelerator; the Resilience Programme has been refocused on its original scope — mission critical systems and completing minimum controls for each. A mapping grid will be produced to enable progress monitoring.

2. The committee has three substantive concerns which require attention:

2.1 First, the Cyber Accelerator Programme spans a wide range of actions but lacks clarity on prioritisation. The team has been asked to reframe the programme using an urgent/important matrix and present a clear plan for those items satisfying both criteria.

2.2 Second, progress on the Board’s request for a national business continuity exercise following a severe cyber-attack is slow. The Committee felt that we must test and plan for major failure scenarios as they relate to cyber, with a focus on business operations and decision‑making resilience rather than technical restoration.

2.3 Third, and most significantly, the Voluntary Redundancy (VR) programme represents a material and currently unmitigated risk. Scarce specialist capacity is being drawn away from critical cyber and resilience work, and this constraint is not yet resolved. The committee felt that the approach to VR may be a symptom of a wider root cause that we have a system which needs to be digital but doesn’t know how we grow and nurture the technology workforce and make it much more part of the DNA of the organisation.

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 30/04/2026

Anyone know why the NHS Termbrowser is down? termbrowser.nhs.uk Error: "Terminology server not accessible!" Was it connected to the Terminology server they unilaterally deprecated with very little warning a few weeks back? digital.nhs.uk/developer/de...

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 24/04/2026

Quite pleased with the CWC logo - did this years ago!

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 21/04/2026

"A thread on the fall of a great journal (because it criticised my company)" Hilarious, panicked bullshittery from someone with a lot to lose. x.com/louismosley/... #palantir #louismosley #nopalantirinnhs

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 20/04/2026

Announcing the first UK "Clinicians Who Code" Conference - this is for any kind of clinician, at any level of coding/developer skill. 20th/21st June, Patch York. £45. Exciting times for CwCs More details in the link! Please share with clinical colleagues! openhealthhub.org/t/clinicians...

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 26/03/2026

Here's the school that Palantir data in the US Maven system helped to target. So, "[On occasion]" Palantir kills children too. Are we cool with that, @rthonwesstreeting.bsky.social ? www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m... #PalantirOutOfNHS #NoPalantirInNHS

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 02/03/2026

I'm proud to support @eff.org - a vital part of the fight to keep our digital rights and civil liberties.

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 22/02/2026

Here's a few photos of the assemblage of metric screws and bits of Opinel and Morakniv blades I had put together to try to make something... It's very much easier to just be able to buy something off the shelf!

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 09/01/2026

A quick read but one I would say is required reading in 2026: @simonwillison.net's predictions for the future of AI programming: simonwillison.net/2026/Jan/8/l... I completely agree, and I think it'll drive down the costs of building software while driving up quality AND demand.

The more time I spend on AI-assisted programming the less afraid I am for my job, because it turns out building software—especially at the rate it’s now possible to build—still requires enormous skill, experience and depth of understanding.

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 08/01/2026

Discourse as a Personal Journal Here's my blog on why a self-hosted Discourse forum instance makes a great platform for a Personal Journal. bawmedical.co.uk/t/discourse-...

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 08/01/2026

"AI boosts A&E EFFICIENCY", apparently - is this verifiable with any measure of efficiency that would be meaningful to affected patients, or any quality measure? Or is it AI fluff being pumped out by a government that has nothing to offer the NHS apart from chaotic ICBs and a "10 Year Not A Plan"

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 07/01/2026

The 10 Year Health Plan working group: data and technology mentions Federated Data Platform only once: to describe it as a 'learning point'. assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6939ae... Does this mean it's not now part of the 10 Year 'Vision'?

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 29/11/2025

The authors of the paper conclude that Postmaster David Cameron's request to appeal should *not* have been blocked. 100% I agree - and further *when we have proprietary code that can result in someone's conviction then that code needs to be published in its entirety, as part of legal disclosure*.

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 29/11/2025

Really interesting line in this report about one of the Post Office postmaster convictions: "This code is proprietary" "Misunderstanding Digital Computer Technology in Court:A Commentary on a Case Involving the Post Office Horizon System" by Peter Bernard Ladkin, Stephen Mason and Harold Thimbleby

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 24/11/2025

Yeah I wondered what might happen if they make it private or delete it, but then my reading of this is that the public forks remain public. If this wasn't the case, it would spell HUGE problems for the open source world

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 23/11/2025

Coincidentally I happened upon this excellent and insightful lament on the difficulty of digital preservation this week, heard through Cory Doctorow who's not on Bluesky but there is this:@pluralistic.net.web.brid.gy. The Dairy Products Theory of Dead Media (2004) bruces.medium.com/the-dairy-pr...

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 20/11/2025

Had an alarming presentation from NHS England today - up till now their plans for the "All-New Electronic Red Book" were described in the #TenYearNotAPlan in two words (in two places): "My Children" + sprinkling of buzzwords including the word "AI" next to "new rash", which is fucking TERRIFYING.

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 18/11/2025

To add context: When one registers a Trademark anywhere in the world, it is published so that anyone with an objection can object if appropriate. It's absolutely rife with opportunist fraud - when they publish your details numerous companies will send emails/mail demanding cash *FOR NOTHING*

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 18/11/2025

Fucking pathetic. Fraud is rife in the immediate purview of the UK's Intellectual Property Office and the best they can do when you report it TO THE GOVERNMENT is to ask *me the citizen* to report it AGAIN to Action Fraud. *I don't work for you*, IPO. Get on the case and put fraudsters in jail.

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 10/11/2025

I can't help finding this amusing (NHSE website) "The Long Term Plan, published in January 2019, can be found on The National Archives website" (But don't worry - *THIS* 10 year plan will be completely enacted within the next 10 years....) www.england.nhs.uk/long-term-pl...

To find out what the next decade of health and care looks like, read Fit for the Future: 10 Year Health Plan for England.

The Long Term Plan, published in January 2019, can be found on The National Archives website.

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 25/10/2025

Back home after another amazing Let's Talk Digital 2025 conference @letsdodigital.bsky.social - here are the slides from my session on open source clinical digital safety pacharanero.github.io/2025-lets-ta... !! No more DCB0129/0160 Word templates. !! No more Excel spreadsheet Hazard logs.

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 18/09/2025

public.digital/pd-insights/... Short, very clear, and absolutely correct blog post from Mike Bracken. With a very clear warning, too. We're already sliding towards a situation in which health data will be easy to misuse by the next (likely right wing proto-fascist) government.

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 09/09/2025

I resigned from the AoMRC Digital Health Group shortly afterwards, because there's literally no point being the Chair of such a group if the Academy aren't going to consult the DHG on this kind of matter. Here's my resignation letter, for the record:

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 13/08/2025

I'm a registered doctor in Ireland as well as UK (part of my post-Brexit hedging) and I just wanted to show UK doctors the difference in tone between the very lovely @medicalcouncilirl.bsky.social Council newsletter and the rather different feel of the GMC... mailchi.mp/1c30b73e2b89...

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 24/07/2025

I'm going to be running a #Discourse forum workshop at #EHRcon25 @openehr.bsky.social - helping our community to get the most out of their forum and getting vital feedback from users about what they need in their online community platform discourse.openehr.org openehr.org/ehrcon25/

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 17/07/2025

I'm sitting out Digital Health Summer School this year. The talk will all be about the #10YearNotPlan and the total paralysis of NHSE and ICBs because of #NHSRedisorganisation Better instead to watch this response to @chionwurah.bsky.social 's excellent question: "erm... well.... um..."

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 09/07/2025

The next paragraph states: "By contrast, 15 years ago, the UK spent less on healthcare as a share of government expenditure and less per capita but public satisfaction with the NHS was at a record high." FROM THE SAME GRAPH we can see that this was RIGHT AFTER record Labour NHS spending.

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 09/07/2025

Can anyone explain how the NHS 10-Year Plan That's Not A Plan #nhsnotaplan can reconcile this King's Fund graph showing absolutely flatlined Tory NHS funding for the last decade with their assertion: "Over the past decade, spending has grown" (p130)

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 25/06/2025

@england.nhs.uk decided that its own Privacy Enhancing Technology was "not initially processing Personal Identifiable Data" so didn't need a DPIA. Weak, weaselling out of their duty. It's like saying a car doesn't need safety features if it's currently empty. www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/publ...

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 21/04/2025

"turst us with your persnonal dater"

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 10/04/2025

My response to being asked to contact a defunct organisation via a non-existent email address was fairly blunt. I did ask them to escalate the issue and got a proper response later the same day. Thank you to whomever dealt with this.

Hi Marcus Thanks for reporting this issue - I've now removed that dataset from data.gov.uk. Best wishes

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 09/04/2025

I didn't expect that they would not only pass the responsibility back to me as an ordinary citizen, but give me the email address of an organisation that was disbanded 4 years ago to do it with.

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 09/04/2025

So I reported the issue to GOV.UK via the feedback form

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 05/02/2025

Here's a non-X.com still showing the key bit. I sincerely hope that senior officials at NHS England are shifting uncomforatbly in their seats watching this. If they aren't resisting this, they are complicit. And on the wrong side of history.

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 03/02/2025

Absoultely damning Public Accounts Committee report on DHSC and NHS England. publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5901/cm... Staggeringly, NHSE have responded by denial, distraction, and refusal to listen. (Toxic) Culture eats Strategy for breakfast. www.england.nhs.uk/2025/01/nhs-...

The new government sees health as one of its key missions and will present a 10-year plan for the NHS in the first half of 2025. It has set out three big shifts that it wants to see: from hospital to community-based care; from analogue to digital; and from treating ill health to its prevention. These transformations are essential to the NHS’s recovery and future sustainability but saying them is not the same as achieving them. We are concerned about the lack of fresh thinking and decisive action we heard from DHSC and NHSE. The scale of government’s ambitions is great, but senior officials do not seem to have ideas, or the drive, to match the level of change required, despite this being precisely the moment where such thinking is vital.

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Marcus Baw @marcusbaw.com · 09/01/2025

Wait long enough and fuckwits will prove you right... "GP IT Futures" is now called "Digital Services for Integrated Care", which means *Futures* is now in *the Past* 🤣🤣🤣 I did tell them this would happen when they brought GPITF to Joint GPIT Ctte in 2019, and they thought I was taking the piss.

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