"Thus speaks someone that doesn't know the way the system works." Stuff the system! These people who are working on it - are they paid to think or are they wage slaves puppets only worrying about their mortgages? How can anyone continue with a project and be motivated when doing so will conclude in a flawed product. It's immoral when they know so many lives could be at risk? Why don't they just walk out? To set an overall budget on this project is incorrect; this should be an incremental on going cost delivery with Boehm's spiral development where features are delivered tested and built upon. Not a big bang approach. But oh no, the big picture has to be painted with headline grabber value-for-money figures to satisfy short-termist political manifestos. As I replied in Tom's last blog here on the subject, the fundamental problem is our short-termist political system which lacks continuity traded off against the potential benefits of frequently refreshing how our country is run every 5 years when an election is called. Such a big undertaking as a NHS database must have continuity beyond election terms as I said.