Insights
Thinking out loud.
Practical writing on software delivery, technology choices, and the realities of building for complex organisations. No thought leadership. Just thoughts.
What Anthropic's GOV.UK partnership means for public sector suppliers
DSIT selected Anthropic to build an AI-powered assistant for GOV.UK. The first use case is employment. Worth paying attention to how this thing actually works — and what it signals for suppliers building software for government.
The most important weeks of any project
It's tempting to skip discovery when the brief seems clear. But the projects that go smoothly are almost always the ones where we took time to understand the problem before solving it.
91% of NHS trusts have an EPR. So why can't they talk to each other?
189 out of 208 NHS trusts have an electronic patient record system. On paper, that looks like a success story. But having an EPR and having EPRs that work together are completely different things.
The case for boring technology in critical systems
When the system you're building affects patient safety or citizen services, the newest framework isn't always the best choice. We make the case for proven, well-understood tools.
PCI DSS 4.0 is now mandatory — what engineering teams need to build
On 31 March 2025, 51 PCI DSS requirements became mandatory. Most of the coverage has been compliance-focused. But the hard part isn't understanding the requirements. It's building the systems that meet them.