Coronavirus: Databases

(asked on 17th March 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the value for money of awarding contracts to both BAE Systems and Palantir Technology for the creation of covid-19 databases for the (a) Joint Biosecurity Centre and (b) the NHS; and whether his Department made an assessment of the potential merits of creating one such database for both the Joint Biosecurity Centre and the NHS; and if he will make a statement.


Answered by
Helen Whately Portrait
Helen Whately
Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
This question was answered on 31st March 2021

BAE Systems and Palantir Technology provided two pieces of software, Intelligence Reveal and Foundry. Management processes for each contract were defined at the outset in collaboration with the supplier. Overall performance, including value for money, is continually monitored through contract management meetings and performance reporting milestones aligned to the Government standards and best practice. Decisions on data assessment, storage and collection are yet to be confirmed. The contract with BAE Systems is to build the necessary data architecture, engineering and analytics capability to serve NHS Test and Trace, including the Joint Biosecurity Centre. Its scope is far wider in terms of National Health Service data and the analytics capability is more advanced than that provided by Foundry.

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