NHS Federated Data Platform
Debate between Zubir Ahmed and Luke Taylor(2 weeks, 1 day ago)
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Dr Ahmed
If the hon. Gentleman had read the details of any contract that the Government have negotiated, whether it is this one or the previous one, he would know that the break clause is there for a reason. Of course we evaluate value for money at those times. He used the word “cheap”, but let me tell him something: it is not cheap to have to wait over two years for NHS treatment in Scotland, which is 30 times more likely to happen than in England. That is why on 7 May the NHS in Scotland can get an upgrade with Anas Sarwar as First Minister and Jackie Baillie as Health Secretary.
The FDP is helping people get the care they need more quickly and more efficiently. As a programme, it is a success. The FDP has exceeded every single target since its go-live date in March 2024, and 137 NHS trusts are actively utilising the platform and have reported benefits. The programme is significantly exceeding its benefits forecast, with external independent experts validating these results.
NHS England publishes data on how the FDP has benefited patients and the NHS. The data collected up to the end of March will be published in May. I can share the figures with Members now. Since the go-live date in March 2024, more than 100,000 additional patients have been supported to undergo procedures in theatres, partly due to increasing theatre utilisation. Nearly 94,000 people have been supported on their cancer journey, with 7% seeing a reduction in the time taken to diagnose their cancer. There has also been a 14% decrease in delays to discharging patients staying in hospital for more than seven days, freeing up hospital beds for those who need them most.
The last Government awarded the Palantir contract on the basis of a successful bid that was deemed to be significantly better, and by a significant order of magnitude, than those of its competitors. It was judged the most economically advantageous and likely to deliver the best-quality outcome for patients. The contract was awarded with an overall value of up to £330 million over a maximum of the seven-year term. So far, £210 million has been invested, as we scale up. The benefits of the FDP are exceeding those we forecast, as I have already outlined, but—
Dr Ahmed
If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I think I will answer his point shortly; in the interests of time, we have to be careful about interventions.
We live in a fast-paced technological world, and that means that we always look to the next possible provider to provide value for money, so it is right that there are break clauses in the contract to allow evaluations to take place. I can reassure all hon. Members that, as a clinician and a Minister, my north star is always patient safety and quality, and of course value for money. If, at the point of the break clause, we evaluate and find that there are other providers that can do the job better, then of course that needs to be looked at and reflected upon. More generally, as the Minister for Health Innovation, Patient Safety and Life Sciences, I would not be doing my job properly if I did not try to champion British business at every opportunity or to champion British small and medium-sized enterprises to become British plcs. I hope hon. Members will take that as read.
The contract has extension provisions and will be reviewed in line with standard contract management processes. We will decide later this year whether to extend it. NHS England will be transparent about the process and the evidence used, as we have been throughout our regular performance reviews for this contract and the FDP.
On digital sovereignty, our priority is to give patients the care they need. As Members will no doubt understand, for some essential IT services, it is simply not possible to develop in-house solutions, as we seek the best from the market. I reflect on my own practice in Glasgow, in the Queen Elizabeth university hospital, which the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East seems to think has found a panacea of publicly delivered technology. I can tell him that when I walk into that hospital, I login through Microsoft Windows. Then I open a programme built by a North American tech company to order test results. Then I open another programme built by a North American tech company to look at the results of those tests. Finally, if I want to check X-rays, I open a fourth programme built by a North American technology company to evaluate CT scans, MRI scans and X-rays.