Inside A Controversial British Healthcare Contract
Palantir CEO Alex Karp. Source: Peter Klaunzer/EPA/Shuttershock
The United Kingdom’s National Health Service has recently been exploring ways to improve its data management systems. Historically, the NHS has consisted of multiple trusts, each with their own batches of data. This system makes it hard for each trust to synchronize with each other, increasing delays in patient care and adding to burdens for staff in hospitals, by making it difficult to work at scale and share information.
The NHS hopes to create a Federated Data Platform (FDP) to address this issue, which would make it easier for different trusts to access patient data by linking the databases of the different NHS trusts. With the FDP, the NHS argues, it would be easier for staff to access patient data, allowing more time for them to focus on delivering care.
The Federated Data Platform is the biggest IT contract project in the history of the NHS, which is why the process has garnered such recent widespread attention. The core of the controversy surrounding the FDP comes from the US tech company Palantir, a company that utilizes AI to improve big data analytics. Palantir has seen its stock appreciate dramatically as investors’ attention has turned to AI in recent months, and its platforms, Foundry and Gotham, have seen applications in both military and civilian settings in the Western world — including in the Panasonic-Tesla Nevada gigafactory, the US Army, and in Ukraine’s defensive war against Russia.
Palantir’s CEO, Alex Karp, has said that his work with the US and other Western governments helped reduce terrorism and defeat human rights abuses. However, Palantir has come under criticism for the secretive nature of its government work — which Palantir takes on more than any other company in Silicon Valley — as well as its work with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Palantir has also faced accusations of misusing consumer data as concerns about unwarranted surveillance have grown.
Palantir is currently the frontrunner in the race for the FDP contract, a contract that would allow the winner to build a database to store all NHS data. The NHS has previously given Palantir 60 million pounds in contracts to lay the ground for the FDP, and to manage the UK’s COVID data. The contract for building the FDP is valued at 480 million pounds, or $580 million.
A hospital in the UK. Source: Watford F.C.
The majority of evidence points to Palantir ultimately signing the contract, though other companies are also putting up a fight. Quantexa, for example, is a British startup that argues that it is more trustworthy than Palantir. The awarding of the contract, though, has faced repeated delays, putting Palantir’s frontrunner position in doubt. A group of 16 NHS doctors have published an open letter in support of the FDP, indicating support for Palantir to win the contract. Observers have argued that it would be odd for the letter to be published had Palantir not won the contract.
"They published this open letter with a bunch of people saying the FDP will do really good things,” said Sam Smith, coordinator at MedConfidential, a health privacy campaign group. “But many of them are people who kind of play for Palantir: fine. If Palantir has not won, why is it NHS England publishing the quotes saying how wonderful it all is?"