Tag: NHS

Palantir’s NHS data sharing deal faces court action

Campaigners have launched legal action to halt a data-sharing deal between the NHS and Palantir.

For those who came in late, Palantir scored a £330 million contract with the NHS to create and operate a Federated Data Platform (FDP) to streamline information sharing among health service trusts and integrated care systems.

The FDP aims to improve service efficiency and address the 7.8 million patient backlog of care hospitals face, enabling them to discharge patients more efficiently.

However, the contract award is a little bit risky as it is giving a ton of UK data to a company which is rather too friendly with the US military.

While Palantir won’t own the data and requires NHS permission for access, campaign groups, including legal organisation Foxglove, are sceptical of the company’s track record.

Cloud Industry Forum teams up with AnalystX

The Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) has partnered strategically with the secure health collaboration platform AnalystX – a key community within NHS England’s FutureNHS (FNHS).

The AnalystX workspace was created on 17 March 2020, just before the lockdown, to connect health & care professionals with data sources, analytics, and expertise to work together in virtual teams. It has become a place for collaboration and a thriving community for data-driven decision-making beyond typical organisational and geographic boundaries, connecting and empowering the data and analytics community.

As part of the partnership, Cloud Industry Forum will connect its members to this ecosystem to support the analytical community on products, techniques, knowledge, and frameworks. This will help learn and align the skills required to do more with less.

NHS contract appears to have gone to Palantir

The UK government has quietly awarded big data analytics firm Palantir a £0.5 billion contract to create an NHS patient data platform.

Health news website Digital Health said that the contract for the Federated Data Platform has been awarded to Palantir but failed to give any sources.

Digital Health reported that Ming Tang, chief data and analytics officer for NHS England, told health IT experts at an event last week that the procurement was complete, but the sign-off was with ministers.

The contract is is controversial because the contract had been rumoured to have been given to the controversial company for several months before the procurement process had been completed.

Even now an NHS spokesperson insists that NHS England is still in a procurement process and will make an announcement in due course.

Spy outfit went direct to get government to buy software

US spy tech outfit Palantir directly contacted the minister of state for disabled people, health and work, Tom Pursglove in a bid to get him to buy technology to crack down on benefits fraud.

For those who came in late, Palantir, was founded by PayPal co-founder and Trump supporter Peter Thiel.  It wrote to Pursglove in April to brief him on its technology, promising that it could help the Department for Work and Pensions to “recover large amounts of fraud.”

According to emails seen by The Guardian after a Freedom of Information request, Palantir attached a note trying to arrange a meeting with Pursglove or his team “to explore whether this capability could be of benefit here in the UK.”

UK governments opens contract for NHS

The UK government has advertised an official contract for a federated data platform (FDP) for NHS England. The contract is valued at £360 million.

The contract has  an estimated value of up to £480 million over the five-years. Tenders are invited from pre-qualified suppliers after a discussion of requirements and potential solutions.

The data platform will be owned and controlled by the NHS and will use NHS data to understand patterns, solve problems, plan services for local populations and ultimately transform the health and care of the people they serve.

UK government scraps NHSX and NHS Digital

The UK government will scrap both NHSX and NHS Digital, merging them into a new body known as NHS England and Improvement (NHSE/I).

At the moment NHSX is responsible for setting national policy and developing best practices for NHS technology, including data sharing and transparency. NHS Digital provided tech and digital systems across the NHS.

Health Secretary Sajid Javid has accepted the recommendations of Laura Wade-Gery, non-executive director at NHS England and chair of NHS Digital, to incorporate the two tech bodies into NHSE/I.

‘The recommendations build on the huge progress made on digital transformation during the pandemic, following a commission by the Secretary of State in summer 2020, and will improve co-operation between the key digital bodies of the NHS by bringing them under one roof for the first time”, the government said.

Resellers scoop NHS security deal

Resellers have been winning parts of a £500 million framework that will provide “end-to-end” IT to the NHS  including Computacenter, Softcat, Total and Dell.

The Digital Workplace Solutions framework is managed by NHS Shared Business Services (SBS) and replaces the predecessor “Link: IT Solutions”.

Total Computers sales director Kieran O’Connor said: “We’re already working with NHS Shared Business Services through ‘The Edge4Health’, so are thrilled to be a ‘Digital Workplace Solutions’ supplier and see it as further endorsement of our ability to provide the public sector with competitive pricing, technical excellence and great service.”

The framework will run for an initial two-year period, with an option to run for a further two years after. Since publication, NHS SBS has told CRNthat the framework is worth an estimated £500 million.

Rotherham NHS uses Microsoft Teams for speech therapy

Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust (FT) is using Microsoft Teams to deliver speech therapy sessions to people in their own homes, reducing the need to leave the house during the coronavirus pandemic.

Rebekah Davies, a Speech and Language Therapist and Health Informatics Digital Clinician at Rotherham NHS FT, said it was using Teams in a pilot project to deliver speech therapy sessions remotely. The pilot involved 17 patients and was so successful that the sessions continued.

“When COVID-19 emerged, we had already been using Teams, so we were in a really strong position to set this up and continue helping people,” Davies said.

Her patients say they feel much more comfortable taking part in speech therapy sessions from home, without the need to travel to and enter a clinical environment.

Suppliers named on NHS Cybersecurity Services framework

The new NHS Cybersecurity Services framework has been announced with Softcat, Logicalis and MTI are among the 25 suppliers listed.

The framework has an estimated value of up to £250 million and runs until February 2024. Other reseller names on the supplier list include Trustmarque, CGI, NCC and Novosco.

The framework comprises three Lots.  The first deals with Emergency Cyber Incident Management and has an estimated total value of £90 million and 11 suppliers. The second lot is centred on Cybersecurity Consultancy Services and has a total value of £80 million and 19 suppliers, while the last is focused on Security Personnel, also with a total value of £80 million and 15 suppliers.

£3 billion worth of NHS cash goes to framework

A group of London NHS trusts has allocated more than £3 billion on a framework contract.

The deal is split into lots of Information Management, Governance and Technology consultancy, transformation consultancy, data access, security, helpdesk, device management, IT hardware, asset management, general IT software, finance software, procurement software, CRM, and project management software.

The trusts, lead by Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, as hosts of NHS London Procurement Partnership, are splashing out on “innovation” such as chatbots, blockchain, RPA, and AI.

Channel brings 10,000 ventilators to the NHS

A number of firms across the computer channel, led by Microsoft, Dell, Arrow Electronics, Accenture and PTC have banded together to form a consortium to deliver 10,000 ventilators to the NHS.

The consortium is headed by Dick Elsy, CEO of High Value Manufacturing Catapult (HVMC), a group of manufacturing research centres in the UK and is made up of Airbus, BAE Systems, Ford, GKN Aerospace, Inspiration Healthcare, Meggitt, Penlon, Renishaw, Rolls Royce, Siemens, Smiths Group, Thales, Ultra Electronics, Unilever and a number of UK-based F1 teams.

NHS sets up AI lab

The NHS is opening a national artificial intelligence lab (AI) to boost medical research and patient care.

The AI lab is intended to bring together academics, specialists and technology companies to solve some of the biggest challenges faced by the NHS.

For example, the lab could help develop tools for better early cancer detection, new dementia treatments and more personalised care.

Imprivata sorts out NE London NHS Foundation Trust’s password fatigue

Security outfit Imprivata has announced that North East London NHS Foundation Trust deployed Imprivata OneSign Single Sign-On to speed up access to essential clinical applications while still maintaining security integrity.

The solution, supplied via Imprivata reseller CDW, provides medical staff with fast, safe, and secure No Click Access to applications using their employee smart cards. Password fatigue was a growing concern across the Trust with employee feedback forms revealing that 50 percent of staff admitted to having some form of password memory aid that was either visible or easily accessible.

Capita scores £5.7 million health contract

Capita has won a five-year contract worth £5.7 million with Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (EPUT) in the largest HSCN contract to date.

Under the deal, EPUT move to the Health and Social Care Network (HSCN) which is a new data network designed to replace the NHS’ legacy N3 model.

The contract will cover 400 EPUT sites – including hospitals, GP surgeries and NHS clinics – and Capita claims it will provide the trust with increased bandwidth as well as efficient access to the internet and N3’s legacy applications.

Mark Madden, CFO at EPUT, said: “We need a reliable and robust connectivity solution to deliver enhanced connectivity. We are confident that this implementation will enhance user experience for our employees and enable greater interaction and sharing of resources between our sites in the Essex region.”

Joe Hemming, executive director at Capita IT and networks, said: “Capita is an experienced provider of IT networks, and this contract further reinforces our strategy. We look forward to using our technology capabilities to add value and efficiencies for NHS sites across the region.”

IBM wins NHS security deal

nhsleafletBiggish Blue has won a £30 million contract to provide cybersecurity services to NHS Digital.

The three year deal will see IBM provide monitoring, detection and response services to the NHS.

Dan Taylor, security director at NHS Digital, said: “This partnership will enhance our existing cybersecurity operations centre which is delivered from NHS Digital’s Data Security Centre.

“It will give us, during times of increased need, the ability to draw on a pool of dedicated professionals from IBM.

“It will build on our existing ability to proactively monitor for security threats, risks, and emerging vulnerabilities while supporting the development of new services for the future and enabling us to better support the existing needs of local organisations. This will ensure that we can evolve our security capability in line with the evolving cyber-threat landscape.”

The contract notice, originally published last November, said that NHS Digital was looking for five or six potential suppliers to bid for the contract, with one supplier chosen outright.

Rob Sedman, director of security at IBM UK, said: “IBM is excited to partner with NHS Digital and brings enhanced detection and incident response coordination capabilities to its Data Security Centre.”