Last review date 03/02/2023

NHS England is working with CCGs and CSUs to support the role out of Windows 10 to all NHS providers, including GP practices. NHS Digital has announced national funding for Windows 10 licences with additional security enhancements.  

Microsoft support for Windows 7 is coming to an end and will no longer be supported on 14th of January 2020. This means that security updates, software updates and technical support for Windows 7 will cease on this date. Therefore a computer with a Windows 7 operating system vulnerable to security risks and viruses. 

How will this affect Ardens customers?

We currently use a mixture of Windows 7 and Windows 10 operating systems on our computers. In line with guidance from NHS Digital, we are planning to upgrade all our computers to windows 10 by the 14th of January 2020. We have had occasional isolated reports from Ardens users who are using Windows 7 who are unable to open Ardens word referral documents which have been saved on a Windows 10 computer.  We want to ensure our end users are still able to access Ardens word documents after we fully upgrade to Windows 10. 

We are liaising with CCG contacts and individual practices (where no CCG contract is in place) to ascertain what plans are in place and what target dates have been set to complete the upgrade of practices to Windows 10. Further information will be released closer to the time.