News OnTheWight always welcomes a Letter to the Editor to share with our readers – unsurprisingly they don’t always reflect the views of this publication. If you have something you’d like to share, get in touch and of course, your considered comments are welcome below.
This from Maggie Nelmes, Ventnor. Ed
Our NHS is in crisis. It is suffering an unprecedented workforce shortage. Yet the Government is prioritising creating a huge central database, the Federated Data Platform (FDP), costing half a billion pounds, to include ALL our NHS records, over-producing a credible workforce plan to tackle the crisis.
It has already tasked American spytech company, Palantir to design the software for the first stage, uploading our hospital records, which all hospitals must start doing by the end of March 2023.
Very easy to identify people from these ‘pseudonymised’ records
Although NHS England claims it will alter or remove identifiable personal information before handing over our records, lawyers representing three patient advocacy groups: the National Pensioners’ Convention, Just Treatment and the Doctors’ Association UK, argue that it is very easy to identify people from these ‘pseudonymised’ records.
This project has been conducted in secret. Neither parliament nor NHS patients have been asked for their consent.
An unfair advantage to win the contract
Palantir has an unfair advantage to win the contract to create the comprehensive NHS records database. It would be difficult and time-consuming to dismantle their current database and upload hospital records onto another company’s.
But this could create a dangerous private monopoly. Palantir’s Chief Executive, Alex Karp himself wrote,
“We are working towards a future where all large institutions in the United States and its allies abroad are running significant segments of their operations, if not their operations as a whole, on Palantir.”
All our NHS records will be in the hands of a private company
The Government will not reveal what shape the giant database will take, what purposes it will serve, what it will eventually cost, nor who will have access to it.
But the very fact that a single point of access to all our NHS records will be in the hands of a private company should be setting alarm bells ringing all over the country.
And what of the enormous cost, presumably diverting half a billion pounds from frontline services? Do we really need a central database for all NHS records?
Crider: Most care is delivered locally and planned regionally
Cori Crider of Foxglove says,
“For some issues – vaccination, workforce planning – there is a clear case for a national solution. But ultimately, most care is delivered locally and planned regionally.
“There are already places, such as London, that have pioneered solutions to pool patient data to plan care better – at a fraction of the FDP’s cost.
“It is far from clear how this will interact with the FDP, or whether it can survive the new system.”
Image: Philipp Katzenberger under CC BY 2.0
