He says that half of the NHS (UK National Health Service) already
uses EMIS LV. He wants to develop an open source equivalent.

I guess the replacement would have to implement all the features
of the original in order to gain acceptance. But the project
would have a clear direction and target feature list.

I doubt that I can help - I have never heard of the system he
wants to clone, but I am all in favour of local government using
open source - it just makes such good economic sense, provided
the authorities aree prepared to pool their investment costs.

To be honest, I think there may even be good sense in the NHS
funding development of an open source development by contract
since the cost could save so mant commercial licenses. Think of
all the reccurrent salesman salaries and shareholder dividends
they would save.

Steve