Summary

  • NHS England says NHS-commissioned intellectual property, including the Canonical Data Model and NHS-built products or components, belongs to the NHS. The underlying Foundry analytics product remains supplier-owned.
  • Contract Schedule 8.5 requires an Exit Plan, a transfer and migration timetable, data and security arrangements, termination services, charges and a capped estimate, with annual updates. The clause does not show whether the current plan for the 2027 decision has been updated, costed and tested.
  • Owning a model is a legal asset. Moving a live service depends on a named team, a sequence, acceptance tests, continuity measures, time and a defensible cost ceiling.

The contract has an exit schedule. Parliament wants to know if it can be used.

The NHS Federated Data Platform (FDP) contract was awarded in November 2023 and formally began in March 2024. Its initial three-year commitment ends in March 2027. NHS England can then take a two-year extension and two further one-year options, potentially carrying the arrangement to March 2031. The Government has not said whether it will extend or end the contract.

The House of Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee calls February 2027 a “break clause”, recommends exercising it and asks for a fully costed exit plan by the end of 2026. NHS England’s contract explainer puts the initial-term boundary in March 2027 and sets out the optional extensions. Those dates should be read beside each other, not blended into a convenient single deadline. A decision paper needs to reconcile the contractual option window, notice requirements and the time left to transfer services.

Schedule 8.5 of the executed contract requires an Exit Plan within three months of the effective date, then review and updating in each Contract Year from the second year. It lists a transfer or cessation timetable and process, data transfer, system migration, security separation, critical issues, termination services, charges and a capped estimate. The schedule gives the plan a job description. It does not reveal the current plan’s date, scope, agreed cost or operational readiness.

That distinction matters because “there is an exit clause” is not the same as “the exit is ready”. The contract says a plan must exist. The public schedule says what it must address. The public material reviewed does not confirm whether a current plan for the 2027 choice has been updated, costed, tested and approved by the people who would run a transition. These are different claims, and only the first two are established in the record examined here.

A portable model is an asset, not a moving crew

NHS England says the NHS owns intellectual property commissioned under the contract, including its Canonical Data Model and NHS-built products or components. That ownership can give the public buyer room to design a successor service or specify another procurement. It is not trivial. Nor is it the whole platform: the FDP uses Foundry, the supplier’s existing analytics product, whose underlying intellectual property remains with the supplier.

A model can be handed over while the service still depends on interfaces, access rules, data checks, operational knowledge and workflows. A successor needs to receive data in usable formats, reconcile outputs, rebuild connections, separate permissions, and decide which workloads move first. Someone has to sign off acceptance, keep the old and new services running in parallel, and choose the conditions for switching back. NHS clinics and administrators cannot pause their work while a procurement diagram catches up with production.

Ownership answers who holds certain rights. It does not show whether those rights can be exercised within the time and service conditions that matter. A useful portability case would connect the model to export formats, documented interfaces, migration tests, named NHS owners, service-by-service sequencing, continuity thresholds and an approved cost range. The legal deed is the start of that case, not its last page.

Commercial confidentiality has a boundary

In its 22 October response to the committee, the Government said NHS England would assess an extension through contract management: KPIs and performance, contractual obligations, financial performance, fit with NHS priorities, data, continuity and value. It made no commitment either way. If the contract is not extended, the Government says transition and continuity controls are in place.

Minister James Frith wrote on 19 October that detailed exit arrangements are publicly available in Schedule 8.5. He said publishing more detailed information would likely prejudice commercial interests and value for money. The schedule also restricts disclosure of supplier prices and costs to potential replacement providers. That is a concrete reason to protect unit prices and negotiating detail. It is not a reason to conceal every sign of readiness. A plan date, accountable NHS owner, transition stages, acceptance gates and continuity measures can be disclosed without publishing a supplier’s price list.

On 20 October, committee chair Dame Chi Onwurah asked whether NHS ownership of intellectual property is enough to avoid lock-in, whether there is time to exit, and whether a plan has been prepared. She requested an answer by 3 November. As of 1 November, that response is not public. The material does not establish that NHS England has no plan; the contract requires one and the Government says transition controls exist. It also does not confirm that a current, decision-ready 2027 plan is in hand.

There is a practical compromise. Publish a dated assurance summary: whether the current plan exists, who owns it, when it was last reviewed, which services it covers, the order of transition, data and security acceptance tests, rollback rules, continuity thresholds, and an approved cost range or cap. Keep supplier-sensitive prices in restricted parliamentary evidence. Parliament can test the plan’s shape without handing a future bidder the NHS’s negotiating file.

The sources reviewed do not show a completed migration rehearsal, a selected successor platform, or a settled exit cost and duration. A reply with the plan’s version date, owners, test results and cost boundary would change that assessment. Repeating the ownership statement or pointing to the schedule would not.

Sources