Ministers must correct record on NHS Palantir claims after stats watchdog criticism
The UK’s statistics watchdog has announced today that changes must be made to the Government’s public claims about Palantir’s NHS platform to ensure that “any figures cited by ministers…are communicated in a clear, accurate manner.”
The UK’s Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) had announced an investigation into figures used by both ministers and Palantir representatives about the benefits of the Federated Data Platform (FDP), after receiving complaints from tech justice non-profit Foxglove and other organisations.
The Government and Palantir have long claimed that the FDP had led to the delivery of over 100,000 additional NHS operations, among other benefits. However, investigation by Foxglove revealed that these supposed benefits were unevenly distributed and, by NHS England’s own admission, unsupported in terms of “cause and effect”.
In other words, the evidence did not support NHS England’s claims. However, ministers continued to cite the figures to Parliament and the media, without any qualification.
Foxglove wrote to then-health secretary James Murray on 16 June, asking him to withdraw the figures and correct the record, but to date has received no reply. Foxglove wrote to the OSR on July 3, sharing the concerns raised and the letter to the Health Secretary.
Today, the OSR announced that:
- “We expect NHS England to ensure that any figures cited by ministers or in official briefings about the FDP and its effectiveness are communicated in a clear, accurate manner.”
- “NHS England will encourage all public facing communications to be clear that any metrics involving observations of before/after data comparisons are clearly and appropriately labelled as such, and include clear information about causality.” This will include changes to the way the information is presented on NHSE’s website.
- “NHS England will prepare a publishing schedule for releasing trust-level information on benefits (the disaggregated data) to ensure further transparency.” (Previously, this level of detail had not been provided, making comparisons between trusts which do and do not use FDP tools impossible).
Foxglove Director of Advocacy Donald Campbell said:
“This damning report makes it clearer than ever that the Government and Palantir must withdraw these dodgy marketing claims and correct the record.
“Even the head of NHS England has admitted personally raising doubts about the claims made on Palantir’s benefits to the NHS. This intervention by the stats watchdog should be the nail in the coffin for the fairy stories we’ve heard about the extra operations supposedly delivered by Palantir’s platform.
“With a new government, there’s a chance to draw a line under the previous administration’s shameful practice of running marketing for this Trump-aligned tech giant. The new health secretary must withdraw these figures, correct the record with Parliament and the media, and ensure that the debate about whether Palantir should have a place in our NHS is conducted based on reliable, verifiable evidence – not spin.”
The full OSR statement is here: https://osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/news/nhs-england-federated-data-platform-fdp-presentation-and-communication-of-information-and-performance-metrics/
For further information, or to request copies of Foxglove’s FOI responses and letter to the Health Secretary, please contact press[AT]foxglove.org.uk.