BJHC goes into liquidation

The company responsible for the annual Healthcare Computing exhibition in Harrogate has gone into liquidation, ending an event that has run for a quarter of a century.

BJHC Ltd has run the Healthcare Computing exhibition for the past 25 years alongside the Healthcare Computing conference organised by the British Computer Society’s (BCS) Health Informatics Forum.

The move into voluntary liquidation follows BJHC making all of its staff redundant in June.

Since the inception of the NHS National Programme for IT in 2002 the exhibition has been in steady decline, after an initial boost as suppliers competed for NPfIT contracts. In its prime the exhibition could fill five halls of the Harrogate International Conference Centre, this year it barely managed two.

Despite the demise of BJHC, the BCS has pledged to run a version of the event in 2009. Dr Glyn Hayes, former president of the BCS Health Informatics Forum, told E-Health Insider. “There will be an event called HC 2009 taking place April 21-24, that will be held in Harrogate.”

He added that the plan was to run the event in a different format, without a parallel conference and free exhibition. “It will be a single event, with no free exhibition, but instead a mixture of demonstrations, showcases and more widespread networking.”

When BJHC Ltd appointed liquidators on 4 July, the company owed creditors almost half a million pounds. The largest of the creditors were BJHC directors Nettie De Glanville and Dr Hugh De Glanville, who are owed a total of £261,581.

In a ‘company history’ provided as part of the liquidation papers to creditors Mrs De Glanville attributed the company’s decline and downfall to the introduction of NHS National Programme for IT:

“BJHC’s main revenue stream – sales of exhibition and advertising spaces – depends on competition between the suppliers of healthcare-ICT products and services. England’s National Programme for IT in the NHS, started in 2003/04, however, introduced and attempted to enforce centralised procurement of healthcare ICT, which resulted in a severe curtailment of the open marketplace and, thereby, a downturn in BJHC’s revenues.”

The commentary says that as result by April 2007 BJHC’s “not insubstantial reserves” were almost “depleted”, forcing corrective action to be taken even as the market was beginning to open up again.

“As the NPfIT blight had begun to lift, the shareholders/directors downsized the business and arranged a loan to the company of £250,000.” But by the end of April 2008 it was “seen that the company would need a further loan or cease trading”, the directors chose the latter.

The company was placed into receivership despite having significant cash reserves of £169,000 and reported intangible assets of £300,000. Employee claims by former BJHC staff total £72,705.

Declaration of interests

E-Health Media Ltd, publisher of E-Health Insider and an organiser of health IT events, is among the creditors of BJHC Ltd. Jon Hoeksma, editor of E-Health Insider is a director of E-Health Media.