Server OS Migration Project Manager Simulation — Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust

The scenario

Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH) operates two major hospital sites — Queen's Medical Centre and Nottingham City Hospital — serving over 2.5 million residents across Nottinghamshire. The Trust's IT estate includes approximately 450 server instances still running Windows Server 2012 or 2012 R2, an operating system that exited Microsoft extended support in October 2023. The migration has been on the IT roadmap since 2021 but was repeatedly deprioritised — first by COVID-19 recovery programmes, then by the Trust's electronic patient record (EPR) optimisation project, and most recently by the NHS cyber security incident response following the Synnovis attack. Each deferral was rational at the time; collectively, they created a growing compliance exposure. The trigger is the Data Security and Protection Toolkit (DSPT). NHS England has tightened the 2024/25 DSPT assessment to explicitly require that Trusts demonstrate they are not running end-of-life operating systems on systems that process patient data. NUH's current DSPT submission — due in 8 months — will fail this requirement unless the Windows Server 2012 fleet is migrated or formally risk-accepted at board level. The Trust's Cyber Essentials Plus certification, required for NHS mail and certain data-sharing agreements, is also at risk. You have been brought in as the IT Project Manager to deliver the migration. DXC Technology provides managed infrastructure services under an existing contract. The project looks like a straightforward server refresh on paper — but the 450 instances include servers running the Trust's patient administration system, radiology imaging platform, pathology laboratory system, and dozens of departmental clinical applications. Every clinical system migration requires a DCB0129 clinical safety assessment, vendor coordination, and clinical sign-off. The compliance deadline is hard. The clinical complexity is harder.

What you'll do as the project manager

• →Migrate or decommission all 450+ Windows Server 2012/R2 instances before the DSPT submission deadline — no unsupported server OS processing patient data at the point of assessment
• →Complete DCB0129 clinical safety assessments for all clinical systems affected by the migration — clinical safety cases must be approved by the CCIO before any clinical system migrates
• →Achieve zero unplanned clinical system downtime during migration — planned downtime must be agreed with clinical leads and scheduled outside peak hours
• →Maintain Cyber Essentials Plus certification throughout the migration — no regression in the Trust's security posture
• →Establish a sustainable server lifecycle management process to prevent future end-of-life accumulation

Project management skills you'll build

The challenges you'll navigate

• •Clinical system vendor certification — vendors may not certify Windows Server 2022 compatibility within the project timeline. If a clinical system vendor does not support WS2022, the Trust must choose between: running unsupported (DSPT failure), purchasing Extended Security Updates (cost), or migrating to an alternative system (scope explosion).
• •DCB0129 clinical safety assessment capacity — the Trust's clinical safety team is a shared resource supporting multiple projects. Fourteen clinical systems requiring formal safety assessments could overwhelm the team's capacity.
• •Server inventory accuracy — the 450-instance estimate is based on DXC's configuration management database (CMDB). NHS Trusts commonly have 10-20% 'shadow IT' servers not in the CMDB — departmental servers, research servers, or legacy systems that were never formally handed over to IT.
• •Clinical downtime scheduling — the Trust's maintenance windows are limited and contested. Multiple IT projects compete for the same Saturday night windows. Clinical system migrations require longer downtime windows than standard infrastructure changes.
• •Budget adequacy — £1.8M was estimated before the full clinical system vendor engagement costs were known. Vendor professional services for migration support can add £30-80K per clinical system.

Technology & stakeholders

You'll manage 7 stakeholders, including Dr Ewan Strachan (Chief Digital and Information Officer), Priya Sharma (Deputy Chief Information Officer), Dr Farah Hussain (Chief Clinical Information Officer), and more.

What you'll walk away with

A verified, shareable record of a completed enterprise project — plus the PMO deliverables you produced along the way (charter, project plan, SteerCo deck, closure document). It's real, demonstrable project management experience you can put on your resume and speak to in interviews.

Frequently asked questions

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