AlphaMED Resources · https://alphamedicine.uk/Resources/cases/palantir
Palantir and the NHS data platform
NHS England is paying a group led by Palantir, a US technology company, up to £330m for software that joins up hospital data. The BMA and two committees of MPs want the NHS to drop the company, and more than 44,000 people have filed legal objections. A decision on whether to keep it is due by December 2026.
- NHS England awards the contract to a group led by Palantir
- BMA chair calls for a complete break from Palantir
- Minister apologises over who can see patient data
- MPs recommend dropping Palantir
- More than 44,000 people file legal objections
Summary
- The Federated Data Platform is software that links information held in separate NHS systems, such as referral lists, bed capacity and theatre schedules.
- It sits above those systems and does not copy everything into one central store.
- NHS England awarded the contract in November 2023 to a group of companies led by Palantir, a US technology company. It is worth up to £330m over seven years.
- The main objection is to the supplier. Palantir also provides software to the Israeli military and to ICE, the US immigration enforcement agency.
- MPs fear that patients who distrust the company will stop sharing their medical data with the NHS.
- NHS England answers that the NHS stays in control of the data.
- Palantir may handle it only as the NHS directs.
- It may not make commercial use of the data or train an AI model on it.
- On 16 June 2026 the health minister, Preet Kaur Gill, told MPs she was "very sorry" about an error in NHS England's privacy assessment.
- The assessment, a published document on who can see patient data, said only NHS England staff could see data that identifies patients.
- In fact three Palantir engineers had administrator access, and 33 engineers from other suppliers had more limited access.
- The contract's first three years end in March 2027. NHS England must give notice by December 2026 if it is not being extended, and ministers have not announced a decision.
Dig deeper
- In February 2026 Tom Dolphin, who chairs the BMA, the doctors' union, said there must be "a complete break from Palantir technologies in the NHS".
- The Health and Social Care Committee of MPs wrote to the minister on 8 July 2026 recommending that the contract is not extended. Its reasons:
- the public and the medical profession seriously mistrust the platform
- the evidence that it works is contested
- other tools can do the same or a similar job
- The Science and Technology Committee had already recommended replacing it with a system built by the NHS or by UK companies.
- NHS England counts 117,539 additional patients having theatre procedures at trusts using the platform's scheduling tool, up to the end of June 2026.
- That figure compares hospitals before and after they adopted the software. NHS England's website now says it cannot "draw conclusions about cause and effect" from such comparisons.
- Imperial College London is running an independent evaluation. One MP on the committee said it is due to report only after the decision has to be made.
- A senior NHS England official told the committee that changing supplier can take between one and three years, and that the benefits would stop during the move.
- Gill's successor as minister, James Frith, replied on 21 August 2026 that if a new supplier were needed, a contract was unlikely to be in place by March 2027.
- Frith wrote that the contract went to open competition and that Palantir scored substantially higher than the other bidders.
- He reported about 60,000 new opt outs in four months and called the rise modest. An opt out keeps a patient's records out of NHS research and planning.
- By 30 September 2026 more than 44,000 people had filed legal objections to the platform handling their records, using a right in data protection law.
- Palantir says it is a "data processor", a company that can use NHS data only as the NHS instructs.
- On 9 October 2026 Tom Watson, a former Labour deputy leader now at Palantir, warned ministers against "mob rule" in deciding who wins public contracts.
- In the Synnovis cyber attack of 2024, patient data held by another NHS supplier was stolen and published.
Ethical issues
| Principle | How it applies here |
|---|---|
| Autonomy | Data protection law gives patients a right to object to how their records are used, and more than 44,000 have used it against this platform. Patients can use that right only if they know who sees the data, and the Caldicott principles, the health service's rules for handling patient information, say they should be told how it is used. NHS England's privacy assessment left out the supplier engineers. |
| Beneficence | NHS England counts 117,539 extra theatre patients at trusts using the platform's scheduling tool, and accepts it cannot show the software caused them. The benefit also depends on patients' choices. Frith wrote that the benefits of the government's 10 Year Health Plan may not be realised if patients stop sharing their data. |
| Non maleficence | A breach of confidentiality harms the patient, so the Caldicott principles restrict access to people who strictly need it. Three Palantir engineers have administrator access to the national system, which NHS England says is time limited, audited and used only for technical support. |
| Justice | Gill told MPs that suppliers must be judged on evidence, capability and value for money, and that the NHS cannot choose them by political preference. A data chief from Greater Manchester told the same hearing that organisations with the least developed computer systems benefit from the platform and are the most at risk of being locked into it. |
Interview questions
- What do you know about Palantir and the NHS Federated Data Platform?
- Why do some doctors and patients object to Palantir handling NHS data?
- What are the arguments for and against ending Palantir's contract?
- You are a GP. A patient says she has opted out of sharing her records because of what she has read about Palantir. What do you say to her?
- Should the other work a company does affect whether the NHS buys from it?
- NHS England cannot yet show that the platform caused the extra operations. How would you find out whether it works?
- NHS England's privacy assessment wrongly said only its own staff could see data that identifies patients. What should a public body do when it gets that wrong?
Sources
- committees.parliament.ukcommittees.parliament.uk/…/27486
- NHS Englandengland.nhs.uk/…/contract-explainer
- theguardian.comtheguardian.com/…/palantir-tom-watson-mob-rule-government-contracts
- committees.parliament.ukcommittees.parliament.uk/…/default
- committees.parliament.ukcommittees.parliament.uk/…/html
- NHS Englandengland.nhs.uk/…/response-to-the-national-data-guardians-request
- techxplore.comtechxplore.com/…/2026-10-uk-ai-giant-palantir-health.html
- NHS Englandengland.nhs.uk/…/fdp-uptake-and-benefits
- osr.statisticsauthority.gov.ukosr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/…/nhs-england-federated-data-platform-fdp-presentation-and-com
- committees.parliament.ukcommittees.parliament.uk/…/default
- theguardian.comtheguardian.com/…/legal-objections-palantir-nhs-platform-handling-data
- theguardian.comtheguardian.com/…/palantir-access-nhs-england-patient-data
- GOV.UKgov.uk/…/the-caldicott-principles
Photo: Martyn Davies, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons, colour altered.
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