So, Matthew Swindells (a senior NHS official - joint chair of four NW London NHS Trust) urged his colleagues to put more patient data into Palantir's patient record system, at the same time that he was a paid consultant for Palantir.
Once again, the privatisation of NHS functions is riddled with conflicts of interest; the move to private provision is hardly a 'reasoned' decision but rather is the result of the corrupt purchase of influence.
h/t FT
if you have 'reader view' you can easily breach the paywall, but I understand you may not be doing that on principle.... as far as he is concerned concerns have been raised but his defence is he paused his involvement with Palantir when giving that advice (for a period of months)... so no (direct) conflict of interest, but this is a defence to the letter of any rules not their spirit
@ChrisMayLA6 I have a "reader viewer" icon (eg visible on my Mastodon website) but it doesn't appear on the FT site. No doubt they have patched that loophole so I don't have an ethical dilemma as to whether I breach the paywall or not.
So if Swindells has some sort of 'pay for advice' contract with Palantir then between their calls for advice he is entirely free to shill for them? Or did he explicitly end the contract before shilling and declare that he had a conflict of interest - that had been under contract to them and could resume it at any time?
Its not entirely clear from the article, but I'm going to say the latter seems most likely
Emeritus Prof Christopher May
MarjorieR