GPs ‘not comfortable’ providing patient data to Palantir-led FDP, says ICB
GPs are ‘not confident’ nor ‘comfortable’ giving patient data to the Palantir-owned federated data platform (FDP), one ICB has said.
North West London (NWL) ICB – which has since merged with North Central London to become West and North London ICB – said that LMCs in its area were ‘collectively not comfortable’ because of privacy issues, while an information officer representing two Midlands trusts suggested ‘politics’ is preventing engagement with the software.
Palantir, a data analytics company known for its work with US intelligence and security agencies, was awarded a £330m, seven-year contract in 2023 to deliver the FDP.
Speaking at the Digital Health event in Birmingham last month, interim chief information officer for NWL ICB Kavitha Saravanakumar said: ‘The providers are the data controllers, it’s for them to decide if the data should go online.
‘As people know, general practice is supported heavily by LMCs, and LMCs have been advising general practices on this issue as well. Collectively, they’re not confident yet around the privacy behind the FDP which is why they’re not comfortable.
‘We could sit here and debate that for a very long time as to whether that’s right or wrong, but that’s where we stand. For that reason, we have not really [worked with primary care on the FDP].’
William Monaghan, group chief digital Information officer at University Hospital of Leicester NHS Trust and University Hospitals of Northamptonshire NHS Group, said: ‘Our experience of working with the FDP team is they are the most risk-averse group of people in terms of data governance and having absolutely everything signed off before they will move any data anywhere.
‘I completely respect there are a whole host of decisions people will make. As a data controller, I am accountable for the data that flows through my organisation, and I want to be totally assured by all of those things.
‘I just feel like it’s a real missed opportunity for the NHS. I would hate to think it’s the politics that are stopping us doing something that’s really good for patient care.’
The Government refused to commit to activating a break clause in its contract with Palantir, with health minister Dr Zubir Ahmed telling MPs the Government ‘will decide later this year’ whether to extend the contract, ahead of a scheduled review period in the contract in February 2027.
According to NHS England, as of February all but one of 42 ICBs were ‘live’ with the FDP.
And the commissioner has suggested primary care patient data will be added to its Strategic Commissioning Tool – which is a new population health management (PHM) product within the FDP – and said it has already ‘supported an ICB’ to do so.
In an NHS England webinar, Yemi Oviosu, delivery lead for the FDP’s population health management programme, said: ‘At the moment, the Strategic Commissioning Tool is based built off the national commissioning data sets, which are linked to give a view of the of the patients.
‘We have supported an ICB around wanting to link also the primary care data at an ICB level, in a pseudonymised format, to the existing National Commission data they have, and we’re working with them through that process as well.
‘That will be to enrich the insights that they’re able to get, because, as we know, a lot of the activity is happening in primary care, and so these there is the option available to do that, if ICBs choose to do that, if they have the legal basis to do that, and it’s something that we’ve been exploring as part of the continued rollout of the of the programme.’
A recent NHS England bulletin on the FDP said the Strategic Commissioning Tool had been ‘built in collaboration with three ICB incubator sites’.
The Palantir FDP contract has drawn criticism from the BMA, which last year passed a motion at its annual representative meeting (ARM) urging the NHS to cut ties with the company – calling it ‘an unacceptable choice of partner’ to handle patient data.
Palantir responded to this criticism by accusing the union of putting ‘ideology over patient interest’.
Pulse has reached out to Palantir to address Ms Saravanakumar’s comments.
