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.
David Davis, a Conservative MP who has long campaigned to protect people’s personal data from prying government and security agencies, told Parliament last week that giving Palantir NHS patient data could thwart efforts to develop a patient data system, by undermining people’s trust.
Designed to improve patient care through analysing patient and other health data, allowing doctors to derive insights to cure disease and help people, the £480 million Federated Data Platform was due to be kicked off with a contract award in September, though this has since been delayed.
Palantir already supplies data services to the NHS, which stakeholders are concerned means it will be unduly favoured over the competition for the FDP.
In June Palantir was awarded a £25 million contract to administer a hand-over, over the course of the next year, from its data systems to the systems of whoever finally won the FDP contract.
