Report criticizes procurement progress for NHS federated data platform

A report released last month sets out the design of the government’s proposed NHS Federated Data Platform (FDP) and its procurement process.

The report, jointly authored by Doctors’ Association UK and legal advocacy group Foxglove, which campaigns for a more equitable distribution of the benefits of the technology, criticized the way in which the government carried out the bidding process to administer the FDP Has been

The government is set to award the main contract to operate the platform later this year, valued at up to £480 million.

The report identified seven problems with the tender: a flawed procurement process; a “poorly defined and changing project scope”; failure in confidentiality and design for patient consent; over-centralization; monopoly lock-in; the bad reputation of leading bidder Palantir; And pilot failures are being ignored.

,While technology will never replace the need for properly paid staff and sustainable budgets, better use of data and technology can undoubtedly help the NHS to meet future needs, improve patient care and increase efficiency,” write the authors concluded in the executive summary of the report.

Nevertheless, it observed that “past attempts to harness the power of NHS data have repeatedly failed, mainly because private sector involvement and public concerns about privacy have not been addressed.”

The report says that while there are 3,000 technical roles vacant in the NHS, US data analytics giant Palantir is the leading contender to win the FDP operating contact despite having “no track record in healthcare”.

It accused Palantir of “pandemic opportunism”, which allowed it to unfairly profit while procurement rules were suspended.

It cited the US tech company’s poor reputation due to its association with US security operations and an “NHS-bashing boss”; The report states that if Palantir is successful in the FDP purchase, it risks eroding trust between the public and NHS staff and increasing NHS dependence on the company and disrupting other platforms.

More broadly, the report states that a flawed understanding of the project’s objectives risks wasting public money, while excessive secrecy risks undermining public trust in the FDP.

The report cited YouGov polling, which found that 48% of adults who chose not to allow their data to be included would do so if the federated data platform was offered and run by a private company. is likely to do.

Last month, the government awarded a £25 million contract to Palantir to “transition” its existing projects with the health service to the new FDP supplier.