Regarding Peter Geoghegan’s article (I investigated Palantir’s foothold in the British state – and what I found should worry us all, 15 July), the nine years that Greater Manchester’s health system has spent without Palantir is a result not of caution but bold conviction.
Greater Manchester’s integrated care board remains the only one in England to decline the Palantir-built federated data platform, having concluded that its own homegrown data capability was stronger. It built that capability with British universities, NHS clinicians and domestic technology firms.
If NHS staff don’t like this tech, and if Andy Burnham believes this use of tech is turning off voters, he should carry that same approach into Downing Street and put power back in the hands of UK companies.
As healthcare becomes increasingly dependent on digital platforms, cloud infrastructure, AI systems and data management technology, there is a growing risk of an excessive reliance on a small number of dominant overseas – particularly American – technology companies.
This is not anti-American sentiment; it is common sense. Downing Street should ask a simple question: if one English region can build sovereign health data infrastructure that outperforms the imported version, why can’t the country? The domestic alternative is not hypothetical. It is already running.
Dr Devan Moodley
CEO, Health Connect Global
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