The UK Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) stated on July 22nd that following an investigation, NHS England has agreed to add a key caveat to its official website's main page regarding the claimed effectiveness of Palantir Technologies Inc. software, acknowledging that existing data cannot prove the software's efficacy.
The regulator also urged NHS England to ensure communications about the benefits of the Palantir software are "clear and appropriately labelled," and expects it to strengthen the role of its statistical team to ensure data cited in ministerial briefings or official communications is "conveyed in a clear and accurate manner."
The investigation concerned a previously widely cited claim by NHS England that hospitals using Palantir's Federated Data Platform (FDP) had completed an additional 110,000 operations and reduced discharge delays by 15%. Reports indicate NHS England had recently quietly added a caveat to this claim on its methodology page, admitting it "cannot draw conclusions about causality as other variables have not been controlled for." The OSR stated that NHS England has now agreed to make this caveat more prominent on its website and in public communications.
Furthermore, since the UK statistical regulator launched its investigation in late June, several hospitals have admitted to errors in the data underpinning the discharge delay claims. The £330 million contract awarded to Palantir by NHS England roughly three years ago is also facing increasing controversy due to the company's ties to US defense, and the new government will face an early decision regarding the contract's future.
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