A philosophical response greeted the news that the Black Country and Birmingham Electronic Records Development project – Blackberd to its friends – had been cancelled.
The work done on the project, which was run by the Birmingham and Black Country Strategic Health Authority, will be used by the National Programme for IT in the NHS.
It was made clear to Blackberd that no national funding would be available for the project if it continued to run a procurement outside the national programme. E-Health Insider reported in January that a longlist of suppliers had been drawn up and that the procurement process was under way. See report.
A spokesman for the authority pointed out that the National Programme was working in a faster timeframe than Blackberd. “We are in a situation where we will get as much as we need from the National Programme,” he explained.
Suppliers have spent considerable amounts of time and money preparing bids for Blackberd, but it is hoped that a lot of the technical work will be taken forward to support the National Programme. News of the cancellation came as no surprise, however.
"The announcement was the official crown on something we already expected," said one supplier.