The Conservative party’s largest donor, Frank Hester, is facing calls from within the NHS to cut ties with his company after the Guardian revealed comments he made about Diane Abbott that have been widely condemned as racist.
At a meeting in 2019, Hester said seeing Abbott on TV made him “want to hate all black women” and that “she should be shot”. Hester has apologised for the remarks but denied they were motivated by race or gender.
Hester, who has donated £10m to the Tories in the past year, is the sole owner and director of the Phoenix Partnership (TPP), which runs the IT system for 60m medical records, including for thousands of GP practices and the prison service. TPP has been paid more than £400m by the NHS and other government bodies since 2016.
Ayesha Rahim, the chief medical information officer at Surrey and borders partnership NHS trust, said she was disgusted by Hester’s comments. Writing on X, she said: “The standard we walk past is the standard we accept. The NHS shouldn’t be a space where racist views are tolerated.” She also invited signatories to an open letter against discrimination in the the digital health industry which calls for the adoption of an “equity charter”.
Rizwan Malik, a radiologist, urged health trusts and integrated care boards (ICBs) to question the use of TPP’s software SystmOne and consider the culture of their suppliers. Referring to equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) policies in a post on X, he said: “Any trust or ICB that deploys TPP System 1 while he’s [Hester] still at the helm should use their EDI policy documents as loo paper as that’s as much gravitas they really give it. As an NHS supplier they must be held to account.”
Digital Health, the organisers of Rewired, the digital health industry’s biggest annual event, has said it will no longer be working with TPP. This year’s event, which took place on Tuesday and Wednesday, was sponsored by TPP but included no speakers or exhibitors from the company.
Digital Health said that in future it would not accept any more sponsorship from TPP while Hester was “at the helm”. A spokesperson said: “Those comments don’t sit with our values so it was an easy decision to make.”
He added: “There is consensus around the conference for people to distance themselves from what he said and that they were unacceptable. There have been questions about the efficacy of continuing to use it [SystmOne], but there is a reality that TPP are in 50% of the GP systems so they can’t simply turn that off tomorrow. There are some vocal and influential people who have suggested doing no more business with TPP.”
The Shuri Network, which champions diversity in the digital health industry, said Hester’s comments raised questions about the acceptability of TPP as NHS suppliers. In a statement, it said: “Frank’s reported comments are misogynistic, racist and unacceptable. They also shine a light on the bigger questions we as the NHS and an informatics community need to address: where do we draw the line on working with organisations? And what action can we collectively do to stop this and enable positive change?
“We have a joint responsibility, at all levels of the NHS – national leaders to those working within healthcare settings – to speak out and challenge views that have no place in our industry … Together, we can turn this moment into a catalyst for real and lasting progress.”
Joe McDonald, a medical director in the health tech industry, tweeted: “I think this may be a ‘me too’ moment not just for £10m Tory donor @HesterObe but also the culture in @NHSEngland and the digital health market in general.”
