Department of Health permanent secretary Samantha Jones has recused herself from any decision to extend Palantir’s NHS contract, after MPs raised conflict-of-interest concerns.
According to the Financial Times Jones was an adviser to one of Palantir’s partners while the US tech outfit was bidding for a £330mn (€382mn) contract to build the NHS Federated Data Platform.
The contract was awarded in November 2023, and a spokesperson said Jones did not work on the Palantir deal. Palantir’s role inside the NHS has become a growing source of aggro, thanks to its links with the US defence sector.
Its chief executive, Alex Karp, has loudly supported President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, which has not exactly calmed anyone down.
A growing number of MPs, NHS staff and medical trade unions have urged the health service to find another supplier before a decision on extending the contract next spring.
Several MPs told the FT this week that Jones should not be involved in any decision to extend or end Palantir’s NHS contract when it comes up for renewal next year.
Health officials then confirmed she had recused herself from decision-making to remove any perception of a conflict.
Jones advised healthcare consultancy Carnall Farrar between September 2023 and February 2024. Carnall Farrar is part of the consortium with Palantir that bid for, and now runs, the controversial data-sharing contract.
Jones apologised last month after the Civil Service Commission reprimanded her for failing to apply for clearance to take the work. At the time, she was a non-executive director at the Department of Health and Social Care.
In total, Jones worked for four different healthcare companies without seeking prior permission from the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments. She accepted that this breached Whitehall rules.
House of Commons health and social care select committee Labour MP Ben Coleman said he hoped Jones would “wish to recuse herself from the decision on extending Palantir’s contract”, given the Civil Service Commission’s reprimands.
Labour MP Stella Creasy said: “Parliament needs to be able to trust that the Permanent Secretary at the DHSC . . . has no conflicts of interest in relation to any NHS contract with a private firm, particularly one which has attracted such significant public controversy.”
Emails seen by the FT show Jones helped Global Counsel, the lobbying outfit co-founded by Lord Peter Mandelson, arrange a healthcare roundtable last year. She did so while serving as DHSC permanent secretary.
The roundtable included Palantir’s special technology adviser, Stephen Childs, a former NHS commercial director.
Jones previously worked in Downing Street under Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson. After leaving government, she became a non-executive director at the DHSC while taking more than a dozen private consulting contracts.
Meanwhile, the UK statistics watchdog is reviewing NHS England’s main claims about the benefits of Palantir’s software. The Office for Statistics Regulation is looking at NHS England’s claim that the platform has helped deliver 110,000 extra operations and a 15 per cent cut in discharge delays.
The NHS site was updated to say the health service could not “draw conclusions about cause and effect as other variables have not been controlled for”.
