NHS England under fire for Palantir contract transparency

The contract, awarded in November, was made public on 22^nd December with extensive redactions, particularly in sections related to personal data protection and service recipients.

In total, more than 200 pages are completely blank.

The move has ignited concerns about transparency, with critics arguing that the move – in both redactions and timing – hardly aligns with NHS England’s commitment to learning from transparency issues.

In a briefing about the FDP contract on its website, the NHS emphasises the importance of transparency and secure data environments, claiming that it has learned lessons from past data programmes.

“Key lessons have been learned from previous data programmes including the need for a) transparency and b) data to be held in secure environments with the correct checks and balances in place,” the health agency says.

“We are ensuring that trust and transparency lessons have been learnt both in terms of design, but also in how we act, for example the timely publication of information and documentation, open publication of use cases and Data Protection Impact Assessments.”

NHS England, which began its partnership with Palantir during the pandemic with a symbolic £1 contract, defends the FDP as a platform to connect NHS trusts and regional systems, providing clinicians with easy access to patient data for enhanced healthcare delivery.

The FDP is intended to will help address the 7.8 million-patient backlog hospitals face. However, it has faced discrepancies in its potential duration and cost: the contract is for a £182.2 million programme over four years, although the NHS has said it could continue for seven years and cost £330 million.

“Under the terms of the contract, the Authority pays for data platform services as they are consumed according to an agreed pricing schedule and therefore the contract value could increase to a forecasted amount of £330m. This figure is also not a committed amount,” the NHS says.

Last month, four campaign groups jointly announced the launch of legal proceedings against NHS England over the FDP.

Led by Foxglove, and supported by the Doctors’ Association UK, National Pensioners’ Convention and Just Treatment, the legal action argues that the government did not adequately consider the legal intricacies associated with the FDP.

The groups say that only a limited number of trusts, currently running a pilot version of the software, have reported benefits.

The groups’ first course of action has been to send a pre-action letter to the solicitors handling NHS England’s legal matters, seeking clarification on the FDP’s legality. Should the NHS fail to demonstrate its legal authority in response, the groups intend to seek a judicial review.

Rosa Curling, Foxglove’s director, highlighted the need for parliamentary approval and proper rules to ensure the lawful handling of NHS data.

Hope Worsdale, spokesperson for Just Treatment, claimed ministers overlooked essential measures to establish a robust legal basis for FDP.

The NHS refuted the claims, with a spokesperson dismissing the concerns as “totally incorrect.”

The spokesperson further clarified that the FDP is committed to using exclusively legally collected existing data for the purpose of supporting direct patient care, adhering to applicable data protection regulations.