90 per cent of NHS Trusts still using 'insecure' Windows XP

Two-and-a-half years after Microsoft stopped supporting Windows XP, nine out of 10 NHS trusts still haven't upgraded

Nine in ten NHS Trusts are still using Windows XP - two-and-a-half years after Microsoft discontinued supported for the operating system, which was first launched in 2001.

The revelation was uncovered by Citirix, using Freedom of Information requests sent to 63 NHS Trusts, of which 42 responded.

The information also indicated that 24 Trusts are still not sure when they'll migrate from Windows XP to a newer version of Microsoft's OS. 14 per cent said they would be transitioning to a new operating system by the end of this year, while 29 per cent pledged to make the move sometime next year.

Unsurprisingly, given that the FoI requests were made by Citrix, the findings also show that 23 per cent of NHS Trust are deploying desktop virtualisation technology to address migrating to Windows XP.

A Motherboard report from September also revealed the NHS' continued reliance on unsupported Windows XP machines and named and shamed some of the culprits.

This list includes East Sussex Healthcare, which has 413 Windows XP machines, Sheffield's Children's hospital with 1,290, and Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Trust in London with an insane 10,800 Windows XP-powered PCs.

At the time, the Department of Health said in an emailed statement sent to Motherboard that it has urged trusts to upgrade systems but that the advice has fallen on deaf ears.

"In April 2014, the Department of Health and the Cabinet Office wrote to all NHS trusts stressing the urgent need for them to move away from Windows XP, and offering transition funding," it said.

"The National Data Guardian, Dame Fiona Caldicott, has made clear the need for health and care organisations to remove unsupported operating systems."

This latest revelation comes just days after the Met Police revealed that it's still using 19,000 Windows XP machines, a decrease of 7,500 from the 27,000 MPS PCs that were running Windows XP in August.

This means a total of 15,500 machines have been upgraded from XP, although only to Windows 8.1, rather than Microsoft's newer Windows 10 platform.