Here's the question
Are they planning to give this data to a big data company, or to keep it in-house and get a specialist company to provide the technology for the NHS to do this process entirely within the NHS without anyone outside the NHS ever seeing so much as a single digit of patient data?
There are plenty of companies who can provide the tech and the hardware for this to be done in this way. Omina Technologies being just the first one to spring to mind, there's probably someone in the UK even who could do it. Unfortunately they'll likely be in Cambridge which will give them bad press but as long as they never handle the data and the NHS keeps the drives at the end no harm.
My gut feeling is that the NHS isn't going to do this because it would be a good choice. Can someone please prove me wrong?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
