Greater Manchester Integrated Care Board (ICB) has again put off its adoption of an NHS data platform prescribed by the UK government and run by Palantir until there is more evidence that it will be in the “best interests” of the city’s population.
The national Federated Data Platform (FDP) was created by the US spy-tech firm under a much-criticized £330 million ($445 million) seven-year contract awarded in November 2023. NHS England, the health quango set to be merged into the central government health department, signed the deal with the controversial US vendor after a series of non-competitive deals totaled £60 million ($81 million).
Greater Manchester ICB, which manages health services for 2.8 million people, deferred a decision on whether to sign up to the FDP. It is the only ICB in England to do so.
A board meeting in May heard how NHS England had not addressed its concerns around risks. An earlier report to the board by chief intelligence and analytics officer Matt Hennessey found Manchester’s local capacity in data analytics “exceeds anything the FDP currently offers and that some of the capabilities we currently have actively in use… are around two to three years away from being fully operational with the FDP environment.”
A meeting of Greater Manchester ICB this week was presented with a a decision to defer adoption of the FDP again until more evidence becomes available.
Manchester Integrated Care Partnership (also known as NHS Greater Manchester) oversees care and directs NHS funding in Greater Manchester. In his report to the board, CEO Mark Fisher said: “We will work with NHS England colleagues to co-develop a roadmap that establishes the criteria for value-based adoption and identifies the point at which the FDP adoption is in the best interests of the GM population.”
NHS Greater Manchester has spent six years building its own analytics system on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform with technology from data pipeline vendor Matillion, analytics and data lake company Snowflake, data visualization firm Tableau, University of Manchester’s eLab, and others.
Fisher’s report said the service continued to expand its local capability in support of strategic commissioning of health and population health management. “We have been able to gather compelling evidence that our use of data and insight is leading to action that genuinely saves lives,” it said. “For example, in the case of our targeted GP incentive schemes, in just one year, it is estimated we have prevented around 180 heart attacks and 200 strokes.”
He said a more detailed paper to support a review of the deferral decision and outlining how NHS Greater Manchester would “move forward” would be presented at a future meeting, although he did not give a date.
Last year, Shona Dunn, the Department of Health and Social Care accounting officer for the FDP, said that the full business case estimated that the platform will realize benefits in the order of £780 million over the seven-year appraisal period. This includes cash-releasing benefits up to £60 million per year within five years and non-cash-releasing benefits in the order of £55 million per year within five years.
In May, an NHS England spokesperson said: “The Federated Data Platform (FDP) is already delivering for the NHS – helping to join up patient care, increase hospital productivity and ensure thousands of additional patients can be treated each month. More than 120 NHS trusts have signed up to use the platform, including 84 percent of hospital trusts, and 72 are already live as part of a phased rollout to provide better care and services for patients.”
NHS England has been contacted for a further response. ®
