https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/05/nhs-goes-to-war-against-open-source/
"The NHS is preparing to close nearly
all of its Open Source repositories.
Throughout my time working for the UK Government - in GDS, NHSX, i.AI, and
others - I championed Open Source. I spoke to dozens of departments about it,
wrote guidance still in use today, and briefed Ministers on why it was so
important.
That's why I'm beyond disappointed at recent moves from NHS England to
backtrack on all the previous commitments they've made about the value of open
source to the UK's health service.
It's rare that multiple people leak the same story to me, but that's what gives
me confidence that lots of people within the NHS are aghast at this news.
A few days ago, I was sent this quote which was attributed to a senior
technical person in NHS England.
We are obviously looking at things like Mythos, which is more sophisticated
at finding vulnerabilities. In the next week or so, we will be changing our
tack on coding the open and making our code public until we're on top of
that risk.
Most of our repos, unless they're essential, will be removed for security
reasons.
As I've written before, this is not the correct response to the purported
threat by Mythos. Neither the AI Safety Institute nor the NCSC recommend this
action. While there may be some increase in risk from AI security scanners, to
shutter everything would be a gross overreaction.
Nevertheless, that's what the NHS is preparing to do."
Via Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
