Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, for what reason the Palantir Foundry pilot at Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has been paused; and whether there are (a) financial and (b) operational costs as a result of the pilot's pausing.

The implementation of Foundry products in Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is centred around two key solutions using the platform.

The first of these is the Improving Elective Care Coordination for Patients Programme (IECCP), which provides solutions designed to: validate waiting lists to ensure accuracy; enable clinicians to tell patients where they are on the waiting list and easily reprioritise them where required; and calculate the number of un-booked minutes in a theatre session and ‘suggest’ patients to fill gaps based on their priority, making theatre scheduling significantly more efficient. The rollout of IECCP at Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has been live since March 2023.

The second of these is the OPTICA solution deployed as part of the Dynamic Discharges programme of work, which is designed to: provide a blueprint to help the National Health Service manage the way patients are discharged, freeing up beds for those in most need; increase the timeliness of discharge for patients; and improve bed utilisation. Rollout of the OPTICA solution at Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is dependent on the implementation of the IECCP modules (which were completed in March 2023) and updates to the Trust’s Electronic Patient Record to enable electronic collection of discharge information.

Due to operational pressures, the Trust temporarily paused engagement of OPTICA. However, it is now in a position to recommence activity.

No costs have been incurred as a result of the pause in delivery because the OPTICA implementation resources originally allocated to the Trust were diverted to implement the solution in other trusts. However, the OPTICA Team is now scheduled to begin discussions with the Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to implement OPTICA as quickly as the Trust can accommodate.