Palantir isn’t the only option for the NHS

‘If one English region can build sovereign health data infrastructure that outperforms the imported version, why can’t the country?’ Photograph: Tommy London/Alamy

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.