Looks like vested interest in the NHS might be worried that the level of incompetence/laziness/waste might be exposed if data is properly examined. Palantir is a superb tool and there’s nothing sinister about the company itself. The whingeing says a lot about what senior NHS management know already and fear might be exposed.
j watson
6 months ago
Appreicated that article raising a number of key issues.
Firstly the nature of the NHS as a national system with population patient level data does give it an unprecedented commercial worth that pressures on funding an aging population with increasing care needs inevitably fuels the desire to further monetise that unique advantage. Regardless of who the provider of an FDP might be this warrants a more transparent national conversation so public can partake in the debate appreciating there is a trade-off here.
The second issue is more specific to Thiel and Palantir – if we are going to do this is this the sort of partner we want etc? On one level the innovative development demonstrated by Thiel and his companies is to be lauded, but there is a dark-side too. Remember this is the guy that also funded Cambridge Analytics who were found to monetise their ability to interfere and distort media for electoral gain.
His comments about the NHS making people ‘sick’ not of course a unique simplistic claim about some health care systems lacking veracity or evidence. Like many he abjectly fails to describe what he’d do differently. He also perhaps ought to focus first on US health care system problems – they spend twice the amount and life expectancy in fact not much better than Cuba. Now were he to say we should do more on public health to avoid, or at least delay, some health care needs, then that would have some validity but notably he’s silent on specifics. Instead of course he’s primarily interested in mining the population data for monetary value and one wonders what else?.
I used to be suspicious of Palantir, when I used to read the Guardian and all their hysterical nonsense about it.
But as far as I can tell, they are actually a genuinely good company. They will only do business with Western countries. They see their mission as defending the West from those who would do us harm, so they will not help countries that are hostile to the West. This has cost them a lot of money.
Yes concur with good bit of that W. But what we can’t yet fully judge is the implications of everyone’s health data being held in a data warehouse somewhere in California and furthermore when/if the ownership structure starts to change too. Overall for myself the potential ‘trade off’ is ok, but as more and more genetic information especially that may indicate likely future health adds to one’s medical record the desire of others to access that data will only strengthen.
If we’re going to put our NHS data into AI saas systems would it not at least be better it was a UK AI saas company than US. Of course they are our close friends etc but I would rather see it UK held/managed and run by UK company like Adarga or other.
Mrs R
6 months ago
A great deal of corruption in the NHS has been going on for far too long without consequences except massive cost to the tax payer.Time for it all to be exposed.
Right-Wing Hippie
6 months ago
So you say your company is named after a set of mystical, all-encompassing seeing stones which have been corrupted by an evil abomination from the dawn of time that wishes to enslave the world? I can’t imagine what you’d want with people’s personal data.
Obviously, in some cases, make them live longer so their grumpiness can be enjoyed into the far future.
Last edited 6 months ago by Bret Larson
Daniel Lee
6 months ago
“the slow death of the NHS as we know it”
The only problem with this is the word slow.
UnHerd Reader
6 months ago
With some digging it might be found Thiel and his associates are some of the people who want to privatize the Social Security system in the USA; which would be a disaster. Using the information, they glean from working in the UK it will be used as an instrument to enable this. This man is a danger and should be avoided at all costs. Search for how he was able to get New Zealand citizenship so he can escape from the USA when there is trouble. He is a big friend of Donald Trump.
Unhered should do an article on his escapades. He is a hustler worth $3.7bn, he used the same UK tactics in New Zealand.
Nik Jewell
6 months ago
OpenDemocracy, Digital Health, and The Guardian have been on Palantir, the FDP and Thiel for years now. You will find plenty in their archives.
Whether it will do you any good or not, you can opt out of NHS data sharing: https://your-data-matters.service.nhs.uk/
Betsy Warrior
6 months ago
Regarding what Peter Thiel might regret having said are some comments he made at the Cato Institute on regretting that women ever got the vote because women were bad for capitalism. When this was published in Gawker Online Media he set out to destroy it; not because Gawker mentioned that he was gay (everyone already knew that) but because Gawker exposed that he felt such eminity towards much larger group of the population.
Davide H
6 months ago
Absurd piece of writing. Never has the author discussed the capabilities of Palantir. The article is nothing but a hit piece on one of Palantir’s investors.
Elaine Giedrys-Leeper
6 months ago
I worked as a hospital based clinician in the NHS for 43 years and was a helpless observer of 3 largely useless “re-organisations” the IT debacle of the century in 2002 ( The UK’s National Programme for IT: Why was it dismantled? https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28166675/ ) which cost the taxpayer £6 billion ? £10 billion ? in mismanaged contracts along with at least a couple of other IT hiccoughs – the Wessex debacle which cost the tax payer at least £22 million ( https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1993/mar/15/wessex-rha-computer-project
and the histrionic version https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/fraud-squad-investigates-pounds-20m-wasted-on-nhs-plan-1540732.html ) and at least 1 other aborted IT based scheme – designed to unify the payment system for all NHS employees.
The DoH have history regarding biblical incompetence where IT and data is concerned.
I think Mr Thiel is whistling in the wind if he thinks he can make this work in the UK and from his off the cuff comments at the Oxford Union it is clear that he knows next to nothing about healthcare or how and why people get sick.
The data he would like to get his hands on clearly has huge potential (to be sold on) and I would be amazed if this data in this day and age, could not be scraped silently.
The jewel in the crown would be the UK BioBank data – priceless for big and little pharma. I don’t know whether this particular information would be available via the FDP platform or not.
I would be willing to put a small bet on the table now, that Thiel and Palantir will walk away from this project inside 3 – 4 years because of the embedded incompetence and resistance within the organisation (NHS and government). Religions, by definition are uber conservative and resistant to change.
Last edited 6 months ago by Elaine Giedrys-Leeper
Roland Jeffery
6 months ago
Iatrongenic illness and good old fashioned hypochondria are undoubtedly a thing and are issues for modern health systems just as they were in the seventeenth century. But to suggest they are specific to the NHS or state-run insurance systems is a wild assertion. Where is your evidence Mr Thiel? They are just as likely to occur in the current US system—at least for the comfortably off whose insurance enable such ‘luxuries’ of modern life.
Looks like vested interest in the NHS might be worried that the level of incompetence/laziness/waste might be exposed if data is properly examined. Palantir is a superb tool and there’s nothing sinister about the company itself. The whingeing says a lot about what senior NHS management know already and fear might be exposed.
Appreicated that article raising a number of key issues.
Firstly the nature of the NHS as a national system with population patient level data does give it an unprecedented commercial worth that pressures on funding an aging population with increasing care needs inevitably fuels the desire to further monetise that unique advantage. Regardless of who the provider of an FDP might be this warrants a more transparent national conversation so public can partake in the debate appreciating there is a trade-off here.
The second issue is more specific to Thiel and Palantir – if we are going to do this is this the sort of partner we want etc? On one level the innovative development demonstrated by Thiel and his companies is to be lauded, but there is a dark-side too. Remember this is the guy that also funded Cambridge Analytics who were found to monetise their ability to interfere and distort media for electoral gain.
His comments about the NHS making people ‘sick’ not of course a unique simplistic claim about some health care systems lacking veracity or evidence. Like many he abjectly fails to describe what he’d do differently. He also perhaps ought to focus first on US health care system problems – they spend twice the amount and life expectancy in fact not much better than Cuba. Now were he to say we should do more on public health to avoid, or at least delay, some health care needs, then that would have some validity but notably he’s silent on specifics. Instead of course he’s primarily interested in mining the population data for monetary value and one wonders what else?.
I used to be suspicious of Palantir, when I used to read the Guardian and all their hysterical nonsense about it.
But as far as I can tell, they are actually a genuinely good company. They will only do business with Western countries. They see their mission as defending the West from those who would do us harm, so they will not help countries that are hostile to the West. This has cost them a lot of money.
Yes concur with good bit of that W. But what we can’t yet fully judge is the implications of everyone’s health data being held in a data warehouse somewhere in California and furthermore when/if the ownership structure starts to change too. Overall for myself the potential ‘trade off’ is ok, but as more and more genetic information especially that may indicate likely future health adds to one’s medical record the desire of others to access that data will only strengthen.
If we’re going to put our NHS data into AI saas systems would it not at least be better it was a UK AI saas company than US. Of course they are our close friends etc but I would rather see it UK held/managed and run by UK company like Adarga or other.
A great deal of corruption in the NHS has been going on for far too long without consequences except massive cost to the tax payer.Time for it all to be exposed.
So you say your company is named after a set of mystical, all-encompassing seeing stones which have been corrupted by an evil abomination from the dawn of time that wishes to enslave the world? I can’t imagine what you’d want with people’s personal data.
Obviously, in some cases, make them live longer so their grumpiness can be enjoyed into the far future.
“the slow death of the NHS as we know it”
The only problem with this is the word slow.
With some digging it might be found Thiel and his associates are some of the people who want to privatize the Social Security system in the USA; which would be a disaster. Using the information, they glean from working in the UK it will be used as an instrument to enable this. This man is a danger and should be avoided at all costs. Search for how he was able to get New Zealand citizenship so he can escape from the USA when there is trouble. He is a big friend of Donald Trump.
Unhered should do an article on his escapades. He is a hustler worth $3.7bn, he used the same UK tactics in New Zealand.
OpenDemocracy, Digital Health, and The Guardian have been on Palantir, the FDP and Thiel for years now. You will find plenty in their archives.
Whether it will do you any good or not, you can opt out of NHS data sharing:
https://your-data-matters.service.nhs.uk/
Regarding what Peter Thiel might regret having said are some comments he made at the Cato Institute on regretting that women ever got the vote because women were bad for capitalism. When this was published in Gawker Online Media he set out to destroy it; not because Gawker mentioned that he was gay (everyone already knew that) but because Gawker exposed that he felt such eminity towards much larger group of the population.
Absurd piece of writing. Never has the author discussed the capabilities of Palantir. The article is nothing but a hit piece on one of Palantir’s investors.
I worked as a hospital based clinician in the NHS for 43 years and was a helpless observer of 3 largely useless “re-organisations” the IT debacle of the century in 2002 ( The UK’s National Programme for IT: Why was it dismantled? https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28166675/ ) which cost the taxpayer £6 billion ? £10 billion ? in mismanaged contracts along with at least a couple of other IT hiccoughs – the Wessex debacle which cost the tax payer at least £22 million ( https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1993/mar/15/wessex-rha-computer-project
and the histrionic version https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/fraud-squad-investigates-pounds-20m-wasted-on-nhs-plan-1540732.html ) and at least 1 other aborted IT based scheme – designed to unify the payment system for all NHS employees.
The DoH have history regarding biblical incompetence where IT and data is concerned.
I think Mr Thiel is whistling in the wind if he thinks he can make this work in the UK and from his off the cuff comments at the Oxford Union it is clear that he knows next to nothing about healthcare or how and why people get sick.
The data he would like to get his hands on clearly has huge potential (to be sold on) and I would be amazed if this data in this day and age, could not be scraped silently.
The jewel in the crown would be the UK BioBank data – priceless for big and little pharma. I don’t know whether this particular information would be available via the FDP platform or not.
I would be willing to put a small bet on the table now, that Thiel and Palantir will walk away from this project inside 3 – 4 years because of the embedded incompetence and resistance within the organisation (NHS and government). Religions, by definition are uber conservative and resistant to change.
Iatrongenic illness and good old fashioned hypochondria are undoubtedly a thing and are issues for modern health systems just as they were in the seventeenth century. But to suggest they are specific to the NHS or state-run insurance systems is a wild assertion. Where is your evidence Mr Thiel? They are just as likely to occur in the current US system—at least for the comfortably off whose insurance enable such ‘luxuries’ of modern life.
I feel sure Tony Blair™ is in this somewhere.