Stop farming NHS IT out to contract. Build the capability within the NHS to build the system it needs, not what some consultancy thinks it needs. It'll be better and more secure.
this post was submitted on 15 May 2025
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Unfortunately, there are a great many directors and senior level administrators who aren't up to the challenge of managing competent technical teams or projects, hence they prefer to go the easy route and just pay someone else for the headache.
It's a well-known tune.
"How much will it cost to do this internally?"
'£50 million, and we'd need to commit to staff to maintain it. But then we'd own it, and it would be about as financially efficient as possible'
"OK, this big company says they can do a basic version for £49m, and with the first year of support for free"
'That won't even do half of it. And they'll just ramp the cost up later'
"No, this is a good plan, we should use the free market to efficiently do these things"
The project then becomes £330m once the private company quotes up including all the essentials that weren't in the original quote, but the wheels are already turning, so it happens
Three. Hundred. Million. Pounds.
Government IT spending is absolutely insane. That's 100 people on £100k a year for 30 years. How does this get through oversight? And then they deliver a shitty system and there's no comeback?
Yes but you see that £330 million was to develop a database and algorithms to prevent citizens from receiving healthcare. Also, Palantir will weaponize that demographic information to advance the purge of undesirables.
All going quite well, actually.
we need to give more money to more companies named after evil objects from LOTR
The Palantiri weren't evil. It was only the fact that Sauron possessed one that made them dangerous. However they were also key in his defeat as he was deceived by what he saw through them.
They were just an object that allowed you to see long distances.
Palantir the company? Totally evil.
The Tories gave that money to Palantir. Don't blame this NHS for this shit
Having worked in NHSE during the initial contracts given to Palantir, in data analytics, no one below SLT gave a shit about what Palantir were producing and never engaged with it. But the higher-ups? The only drips that gave them the time of day. Some much more enthusiastically than others.
Everything about this stinks of Tory.
That's because the important bit is the "gave £330 million to Palantir" and not the "NHS data platform". Palantir execs are laughing, NHS managers are paying their mortgages, all is well. Where's the problem?