Palantir's £330m NHS contract can be cancelled in February.
The break clause in Palantir's seven-year Federated Data Platform contract with the NHS becomes available in February, The Register reported.
The £330 million contract links data sources to help the health service work through its elective care backlog.
Zubir Ahmed, a junior minister at the Department of Health and Social Care, said: "My north star is always patient safety and quality, and of course value for money. If, at the point of the break clause, we evaluate and find that there are other providers that can do the job better, then of course that needs to be looked at and reflected upon."
The Register reports Palantir's earlier UK health work included about £60 million of pandemic-era contracts awarded without competition. The company has also hired a former deputy leader of the Labour party as its UK senior vice president.
A break right is only useful if the evidence is ready. That takes an auditable performance record against agreed baselines. The transition plan needs to be costed too.
For the contracts in your estate that carry break rights, who owns that performance record and the exit cost model?
Sources
Our file on Palantir
- 4 Nov
NHS England credits Palantir with helping 137 trusts. Twenty-nine say they are not using it.
- 3 Nov
Palantir sold $984 million to US companies last quarter, more than to the US government for the first time. Sales jumped 148%.
- 31 Oct
Celonis says 75% of Germany's top 40 listed firms use its software. Now it offers police a Palantir rival logging every search.
- 30 Oct
Britain's defence ministry paid Palantir £282 million in ten years, the FT found. Its published contracts showed £95.9 million.
- 25 Oct
MPs asked Britain to drop Palantir from NHS data work. Ministers offered a review that could end in a two-year extension.
For your next steering committee
- 1Ask which exit clauses your largest software and services contracts carry, and when each can be used.
- 2Ask what leaving would cost, in money and in months.
- 3Ask who reads the contract when a dispute starts, and whether they have read it before.
Issue 01 of the ERP LEADERS brief puts a timeline, the three-number review and six questions on one page. Read issue 01
Welcome back. · Issue 01
