Jan 25, 2024
TONY BLAIR and William Hague came under fire today after they pushed the sale of NHS medical records to private firms.
In a joint report, the former political rivals called for the creation of a new NHS data trust “to capitalise on the opportunities of health data” which could be treated as a “competitive asset.”
The pair recommended commercial access to records via “trusted external partners.”
Cori Crider, director of the advocacy group Foxglove, said: “The way to get people to join science research is to ask them – not to grab their data.
“Time to rein Tony in. Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting should make it clear that a Labour government will never sell our NHS data.”
She also called for Labour to halt the Tories’ “blowout” splurge on spy tech firm Palantir, which has been awarded a £330 million contract to create a “federated data platform” for the NHS.
The contract sparked a backlash from campaigners, who flagged concerns over what the CIA-backed company, which has military contracts all over the world, might do with NHS data.
Dr Martin Blanchard of Keep Our NHS Public said Mr Blair and Mr Hague’s plot “immediately rings alarm bells.”
He argued that the Tony Blair Institute is partly funded by Oracle, a tech company that purchased Cerner, which supplies software to multiple NHS organisations.
“I wonder if any of his other advisers have commercial health tech links?” he asked.
We Own It campaigner Johnbosco Nwogbo said: “These suggestions by Blair and Hague are an insult to every one of us.
“How can we trust private firms to put patient good before private profit?
“It is crucial that our sensitive health data is publicly owned and properly protected.”
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