WTF, they have a big Azure deal with Microsoft, why the hell would the be using Excel as the data source?
IT ineptitude of the highest order, although I'm not surprised having been involved with government IT previously.
IT ineptitude of the highest order, although I'm not surprised having been involved with government IT previously.
Who are "they"? The Government? GDS? PHE? NHS England? NHS Digital? NHSx?
"They" in this case was the UK Government, and part of the goal was creating secure backend systems specifically for the NHS as a data store, Public Health England would absolutely have access to it.
Even the most basic of checks at the start of the project would have highlighted that Excel was not a proper solution for the application (Even if the developer(s?) had used the newer(?!?) XLSX format rather than XLS) - which highlights that there was no proper oversight as to how the system was constructed.