History
The partnership was formed in 1997 by Frank Hester,[1] a computer programmer married to a GP, to create a patient-record storing system that would help GPs after witnessing his wife's "constant struggle with the lack of connectivity and integration between NHS services".[2] The system that was created, SystmOne, was developed the following year as a clinical IT system that linked a GP practice and a diabetes service in Bradford, UK.
Growth
By 2012, TPP's SystmOne held enough patient records that it could be used as a research database. In partnership with the University of Leeds and the UK Government's Technology Strategy Board, in May TPP launched ResearchOne as a not-for-profit health and care research database.
The company significantly increased its market opportunities when the then prime minister, David Cameron, invited it on trading missions to both India and China in 2013.[3] By January the following year, it signed its first memorandum of understanding with a Chinese province, the Zhejiang provincial centre for disease prevention and control.[4] In 2016, the company signed its first contract in the Middle East when it agreed with Qatari Integrated Intelligence Services to deliver SystmOne to the private healthcare sector across Qatar, including approximately 300 primary care sites.[5]
In 2015, David Cameron visited the in-progress building site of new TPP head office. Cameron gave a speech saying, "What [TPP] is doing here is incredible… Companies like TPP keep the UK at the forefront of innovation… TPP is an example of a great British business with immense potential."[6] In the same year TPP's CEO, Frank Hester, received an OBE for his contribution to healthcare in the UK.[7]
In September 2023, The Guardian reported that payments totalling £137m since April 2020 from the Department of Health and Social Care were found in payment data[8] which had not been published on the Government's official procurement website, "Contracts Finder".[9] Hester, their CEO, is the largest ever donor to the UK governing Conservative Party, having donated £10 million in the space of a year.[10]
Data breaches
In 2017, the SystmOne was found to have serious compliance concerns by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). This affected 2,700 GP practices in the UK and a new data-sharing feature in the software.[11]
Between March 2015 and June 2018, another breach due to the SystmOne software occurred affecting the data of 150,000 patients. This shared the data of patients who had made a type 2 opt-out (which meant they did not allow their data to be used for anything other than their own clinical care). TPP offered an unreserved apology for the breach. A statement to parliament regarding the breach was read out by the health minister[who?] and patients were informed by letter.[12][better source needed]
Founder controversies
In March 2024, The Guardian reported that Frank Hester had supposedly made several racist and misogynist comments. This includes in 2019 an abusive statement about the MP Diane Abbott, saying that Abbott "makes you want to hate all black women" and that she "should be shot". That same year, Hester allegedly called a meeting for "foreign" employees to defend himself following accusations of racist comments by former employees, saying in part, "I want to clear the air and make sure we all know where we are, what we stand for, and we take the piss out of the fact that all our Chinese girls sit together in Asian corner, which they do." A statement from The Phoenix Partnership said Hester abhorred racism and "accepts that he was rude about Diane Abbott in a private meeting several years ago but his criticism had nothing to do with her gender nor colour of skin."[13]
