Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the (1) financial, (2) operational, and (3) security, implications of missing the January 2020 deadline to migrate all computers used by the National Health Service to Windows 10.

The whole of the National Health Service estate is covered by extended support for Windows 7 until January 2021. This means that the NHS will continue to receive security patches for the next year. This was included at no additional cost within the NHS Windows 10 Agreement.

Government is supporting the roll out of Windows 10 across the NHS estate. This process is on track and all NHS organisations have agreed to migrate to Windows 10 by no later than December 2020.

NHS trusts additionally benefit from access to Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP), which provides real time detection and protection against potential threats by identifying suspicious behaviour on devices indicative of a cyber-attack. ATP can be deployed on Windows 7 and Windows 10 machines and gives NHS Digital and local organisations enhanced capability to respond to threats in real time. Through ATP, NHS Digital can also see where every organisation is in relation to the deployment of Windows 10.