Trying to connect to a .gov.uk site ...

[Serendipitous Sid]

As it says. I go to the County library site and I get the usual "transferring data from ..." for the first 20-30 seconds of looking at a white screen. Then I get "connecting to ..." If after no sign of the home page in 60 seconds or more I click again on the site's bookmark, the home page appears for about a second then it's back to a white screen!

I'm on fibre BB with no issues on any other sites, and I've never had a problem with this one before, although it does have an oddity in that if you request a book list sent to you by email rather than downloading it, Error 404 comes up - but it sends the email anyhow!

I've never seen this happen with any other site, so In a word - wtf? Server problem or what?

 

[crofter]

Some-one needs to go and put another shilling in the meter I suspect.

 

[Phil V]

Some-one needs to go and put another shilling in the meter I suspect.

This^
Both LA and national govt IT and websites are built down to a price, there's no real parallel in the market place.

Your only option is to keep logging errors with the council, they might find improvements to make.

 

[Serendipitous Sid]

Your only option is to keep logging errors with the council ...

Oh, I'm on their back for sure, and no doubt one of many. Just curious as to what on earth could be the cause of a site doing something I've never seen before ...

Maybe the EU have nobbled it in a fit of pique?

 

[arclight]

This^
Both LA and national govt IT and websites are built down to a price, there's no real parallel in the market place.

Your only option is to keep logging errors with the council, they might find improvements to make.

In general I find the wide variety of websites that I use are fast except my council website. In particular the planning dept. is very slow despite my high speed connection. I have learned that it is a common problem.
Only ever experienced occasional problems with national gov. websites.

 

[Phil V]

The IT systems inside govt departments are pants too. Cheapest contract and minimum service. Saving tax payers money on the contract rather than making them quicker and therefore speeding up staff.

I was watching Drs and nurses the other week and no private company would be happy with such clunky software.

 

[Byker28i]

The IT systems inside govt departments are pants too. Cheapest contract and minimum service. Saving tax payers money on the contract rather than making them quicker and therefore speeding up staff.

I was watching Drs and nurses the other week and no private company would be happy with such clunky software.

If only that were true. The contracts for these are huge due to the necessary compliances. Capita for instance employ 70,000 people supporting Govt it contracts. Even tenders for small ones are in the millions.
Local Govt it still have their own it departments and outsource where necessary, the specification is usually wrong, requirements not thought of, and only after all is Cocked up do they the try to beat the price down

 

[Serendipitous Sid]

I was watching Drs and nurses the other week and no private company would be happy with such clunky software.

Only three years ago, I watched an oncologist look up what she'd prescribed on a patient's last visit. She was already logged onto the system, so that involved nothing more than entering the patient's hospital number (9 digits) and DOB, then navigating to the relevant page. I said "Did it just take you 4 mouse clicks to get to that page after you'd confirmed the patient?" She thought it was actually 5, so before we left she did it again and we both counted. It was in fact 6 ...

 

[Shadow]

Only three years ago, I watched an oncologist look up what she'd prescribed on a patient's last visit. She was already logged onto the system, so that involved nothing more than entering the patient's hospital number (9 digits) and DOB, then navigating to the relevant page. I said "Did it just take you 4 mouse clicks to get to that page after you'd confirmed the patient?" She thought it was actually 5, so before we left she did it again and we both counted. It was in fact 6 ...

Weirdly the hospital I attend for my Annual Oncologist appointment isn't connected to the rest of the NHS so she can't see my blood test results. In the same way my Doctor's surgery can't see my Oncologist test results so I either have to get the two parties talking to one another or have 2 sets of the same blood tests.

I work for A Government Department and I can tell you that on the whole the systems we run on are appalling compared to the private sector I came from.

 

[Phil V]

If only that were true. The contracts for these are huge due to the necessary compliances. Capita for instance employ 70,000 people supporting Govt it contracts. Even tenders for small ones are in the millions.
Local Govt it still have their own it departments and outsource where necessary, the specification is usually wrong, requirements not thought of, and only after all is Cocked up do they the try to beat the price down

I wasn't blaming the contractors.
The whole thing is often a clusterf***. Even when they put a lot of effort in.

 

[Phil V]

Weirdly the hospital I attend for my Annual Oncologist appointment isn't connected to the rest of the NHS so she can't see my blood test results. In the same way my Doctor's surgery can't see my Oncologist test results so I either have to get the two parties talking to one another or have 2 sets of the same blood tests.

I work for A Government Department and I can tell you that on the whole the systems we run on are appalling compared to the private sector I came from.

I have used the 'single NHS database' as a 'Bad example' in training material. That was the real worst case for government IT contracting.

I've also worked for A govt department, in IT support mainly, and 'frustrating' doesn't cover it.

 

[B1ts]

Not to mention the aspect of those "powers that be" moving goalposts without understanding of repercussions to work already completed, this is a major cause to the cost overruns we all hear about after the fact. Not unique to Government obviously but their political structuring tends to lead to this occurring in a more unaccountable way than most.

 

[Alastair]

Weirdly the hospital I attend for my Annual Oncologist appointment isn't connected to the rest of the NHS so she can't see my blood test results. In the same way my Doctor's surgery can't see my Oncologist test results so I either have to get the two parties talking to one another or have 2 sets of the same blood tests.

After doing several contracts within the NHS and LA Social Care sector on the fringes of IT (bending bad data sets to provide consistently wrong reports of progress against poorly thought out targets) I now get hard copy printouts of all blood results from my GP and my consultants because frequently one is unable to see results of tests commissioned by the other. It has improved over the last couple of years, but it's still far from 100%.

Which reminds me, I need to play another round of "get past the gatekeeper" this week with my consultant's secretary to get the results from last week's appointment with the vampires.