Home User Program

The Home User Program was an initiative between the NHS and Microsoft that enabled NHS employees to obtain Microsoft Office software. The user was required to prove that they worked for the NHS ( usually provide an NHS email address) and then pay a sum to cover administrative and distribution costs , after which they would receive a copy of the latest Office Suite for use at home. The user did not buy the software. The user received a licence to install it on a computer at home. One of the rules was that when they left the employment of the NHS, they had to uninstall it.

in June 2010 , the agreement was not renewed ( details on e-health-insider.com ) and subsequent to that , people who took advantage of the HUP arrangement are required to uninstall the software. Details are on the Microsoft web site.

Alternatives to Microsoft Office

For windows

Word processor ('Word'), Spreadsheet ('Excel') and presentation ('Powerpoint') software

• Open Office ( Opensource and therefore free)
• Lotus Symphony ( Opensource and therefore free)

both these programs will read documents written initially using MS Office, and will save in MS Office format (as .doc, .xls , and ppt)

For Mac