Statistics regulator pushes NHS England to add caveat to FDP performance data

The findings of an investigation by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) have prompted NHS England to qualify its public claims regarding the effectiveness of software provided by Palantir. The regulator has urged the health service to ensure that figures on the company's Federated Data Platform (FDP) are communicated clearly and accurately, following multiple complaints about potential breaches of the statistical code of practice.

The review targeted claims that the platform delivered 110,000 additional operations and reduced discharge delays by 15%. NHS England has agreed to prominently display caveats acknowledging that its data cannot prove cause and effect due to uncontrolled variables. Furthermore, several hospital trusts subsequently reported errors in the underlying discharge-delay figures, while NHS England pledged to publish disaggregated trust-level data to increase transparency.

NHS England also agreed to clarify that it has not authored or verified individual trust case studies promoting the software. Despite concerns about potential suppression of internal criticism, the OSR noted that it was assured of the independence of NHS England statisticians within the limited scope of its investigation.

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