Updated: NHS specialists concerned about Palantir bid

Data specialists inside the NHS have expressed concerns over a bid by controversial US firm Palantir to win a £480mn contract to build the NHS's federated data platform (FDP).

The NHS used Palantir's data integration and analytics platform, Foundry, during the pandemic to manage the national vaccination programme and the provision of ventilators.

However, now several NHS data specialists have criticised the company's software, stating that it is not user-friendly, is expensive, and makes it difficult to switch to a different provider in the future.

"Senior leadership love it because it produces nice, shiny dashboards but as an analyst, it doesn't allow you to do the kind of data manipulation that is the building blocks of your analytical skills," one NHS analyst who had used the technology told the Financial Times.

Another specialist said the idea of paying Palantir up to £480mn for a duration of seven years has a sense of absurdity to it.

Some specialists, however, have commended Foundry's visualisation tools. They said a broader implementation could have a notable impact on the work of clinicians and analysts.

NHS England has said the Foundry platform was instrumental in decreasing inpatient waiting lists by 28% in a trial conducted at Chelsea and Westminster hospital.

The FT reported that Jeffrey Ahmed, a consultant gynaecologist at the hospital, described Foundry as a "game-changer" that helped to "reduce my administrative burden".

The case against

Although trusts' managers had advocated for wider adoption, two specialists said integrating the technology with other analytical tools was challenging.

Three specialists said the NHS should consider implementing a fully open-source system that allows for easy modification, sharing and exporting of source code.

NHS guidelines dictate that whenever feasible, services ought to be constructed using open and reusable code.

The NHS's service standard notes, "Publishing source code under an open licence means that you're less likely to get locked in to working with a single supplier."

Two individuals referred to OpenSAFELY as a viable alternative. OpenSAFELY is an open-source platform created by Oxford University academic and author Ben Goldacre, already used for analysing the effects of Covid-19 infection on patients.

Foundry's source code is not open, though Palantir has said it uses open-source formats by default for all data, code and configuration. These can be exported and downloaded for migration to other service providers.

"We'll buy our way in"

Palantir was founded by Peter Thiel and funded by the CIA. The company has a background in government and corporate surveillance, and controversially won an NHS contract during the Covid pandemic to aid in the distribution of vaccines and ventilators.

Palantir has now expanded the presence of its Foundry software to several other parts of NHS England's operations.

Last year, a leaked paper disclosed Palantir's strategy of "buying its way" into the NHS if its contract bids were blocked.

Recently openDemocracy, a news and advocacy platform, referred to a letter from Julian Kelly, NHS England's deputy CEO and CFO, which said that hospitals in England had been instructed to share patient data with Palantir.

According to the letter, Kelly instructed NHS trusts to start uploading patient data to a new centralised database named "Faster Data Flows" by the end of March.

The database, which has been under trial since the previous summer, is built on Palantir's Foundry platform.

The opposition

Several advocacy groups - including legal firm Foxglove, the Doctors' Association, the National Pensioners Convention, and campaign group Just Treatment - have threatened to take legal action against NHS England regarding the £480 million FDP contract.

These groups are demanding that the government disclose the data that will be shared.

A consortium of British data firms, including Voror Health Technologies, Eclipse, and Black Pear, decided to compete with Palantir for the FDP contract last month.

The consortium was confident that they could execute the contract for considerably less than the government's allocated budget of £480 million.

However, just today the consortium shared the news that its bid had been rejected.

Voror CEO Shane Tickell said, "For us this isn't the end of a process, it's the beginning of a new one, we look to announce our intentions in the summer."

Oracle Cerner and IBM are also set to bid for the FDP contract.

The NHS is set to announce the winning bidder later this year.