NHS Trusts Reject Palantir’s £330m Patient Data Platform

Published: 17 October 2026. The English Chronicle Desk. The English Chronicle Online

Several National Health Service organisations across England are refusing to adopt Palantir’s patient data technology, raising fresh questions about the value, public trust and long-term future of a £330 million government contract with the controversial American technology company. Responses to freedom of information requests suggest that some NHS trusts believe the platform offers little improvement over software they already use, while others have tested the system and decided not to proceed.

The findings come at a critical moment for the government, which must decide whether to continue with the seven-year agreement or exercise a break clause. The Federated Data Platform (FDP), introduced in March 2024, was intended to help NHS organisations bring information together more effectively, improve coordination between services and support more efficient patient care. However, evidence from health bodies across England indicates that the platform’s reception has been far from uniform.

While some organisations have reported benefits, including improvements in waiting-list management and surgical scheduling, others have questioned whether the technology delivers sufficient additional value to justify its adoption. The disagreement has intensified the debate over whether a single centrally supported platform is the right approach for a health service made up of organisations with different systems, operational needs and existing technological capabilities.

The information was obtained through more than two dozen freedom of information responses gathered by Medact, a health campaign organisation opposed to Palantir’s role in the NHS. Sixteen trusts and health boards said they did not use the platform following its introduction. Their responses included organisations that had ruled out adoption, had no plans to introduce the technology or had concluded that existing software remained adequate for their requirements.

Among them was University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust, which said the platform did not appear to offer functionality beyond what was already available through its existing arrangements. Dorset HealthCare University NHS Foundation Trust said it would not adopt or launch the FDP, while Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust confirmed that it had no plans to use it.

Other organisations described more mixed experiences. Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust said it had used the system but had not seen significant improvements compared with its local software. Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust said it had yet to identify an FDP tool that offered substantially more than its existing capabilities. University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, which serves more than two million people, cited limited expected benefits over existing solutions when explaining why it had no plans to adopt the platform.

The findings suggest that NHS organisations are making different assessments of the technology according to their individual circumstances. For trusts that already possess established systems capable of meeting their operational needs, introducing another platform may offer limited advantages while requiring staff training, technical integration and changes to existing working practices.

Greater Manchester’s care board described the Palantir system as duplicative and retrograde, while a trust in Suffolk said other systems surpassed the FDP’s functionality. Such assessments challenge the assumption that a centrally procured platform will necessarily provide a better solution for every part of the NHS.

The issue is particularly important because NHS organisations operate under significant financial and operational pressure. Hospitals must manage waiting lists, coordinate treatment, allocate staff and beds, and ensure patients can move safely between services. Technology that improves these processes could help staff make better use of limited resources. But if a new system duplicates existing functions or proves difficult to integrate into local operations, its introduction may create additional work without delivering corresponding benefits.

The FDP was designed to help address these challenges by allowing health organisations to use digital tools that draw together relevant information and support different operational tasks. Better access to information can, in principle, help hospitals identify delays, manage patient pathways and coordinate discharge arrangements. The disagreement concerns whether Palantir’s platform delivers those benefits consistently and whether comparable results could be achieved through alternative systems.

Palantir has strongly defended the programme, rejecting criticism of its effectiveness and disputing the interpretation of the freedom of information findings. The company accused Medact of conducting a slanted analysis and misleading the public. A spokesperson described the FDP as an objectively successful programme, arguing that it was designed to offer trusts a range of tools they could use according to their existing capabilities and specific needs.

The company also pointed to the programme’s official delivery assessment, saying it was among a minority of major government programmes to receive a green delivery rating. It cited statements from ministers indicating that the initiative was exceeding its forecast benefits and had surpassed its targets.

Palantir further argued that numerous NHS organisations had publicly praised the platform. The trusts it identified included hospitals and health bodies in Chelsea and Westminster, Leicester, Northampton, Bath, North Cumbria, Croydon, Great Western, Chesterfield, Ashford and St Peter’s, and Norfolk. The company maintains that these examples demonstrate that the platform can provide meaningful operational improvements when used appropriately.

The debate is therefore not simply a choice between a successful system and a failed one. Some NHS organisations report advantages, while others say they have not found sufficient reasons to adopt it. The challenge for government is to establish how far the reported benefits can be attributed to the technology itself and whether those gains justify the financial commitment.

Palantir has cited NHS figures showing that trusts using the FDP carried out an additional 117,000 operations and recorded a 14.3 per cent reduction in discharge delays among long-stay patients. These figures, if sustained and properly interpreted, could indicate improvements in the use of hospital capacity and the movement of patients through the system.

However, NHS England has added a qualification to its statistics, explaining that it cannot establish a direct cause-and-effect relationship because other variables have not been controlled for. In other words, the reported improvements do not automatically prove that the FDP alone produced the changes. Other initiatives, staffing levels, local management decisions and wider operational developments may also have contributed.

That distinction is central to the government’s decision. A major technology contract should be assessed not only by whether improvements have occurred in organisations using the system, but also by whether the platform can reasonably be shown to have contributed to those results. Decision-makers must consider the scale of the benefits, the cost of implementation, the availability of alternatives and the practical consequences of continuing or ending the agreement.

The contract has also become politically contentious because of concerns about Palantir’s wider activities and its growing role in public services. The American company has faced protests over its contracts with the Israeli military and US homeland security agencies. Its co-founder, technology billionaire Peter Thiel, has also attracted criticism over his views on the NHS. In 2023, Thiel said the health service made people sick, a remark that has contributed to public unease about the company’s involvement in handling sensitive health information.

Questions about patient data are especially significant because medical records contain highly personal information. Patients must have confidence that information about their health is handled appropriately, that access is governed by robust safeguards and that the organisations managing their data act in the public interest.

More than 44,000 people have submitted legal objections to their health data being shared with, stored in or used by the FDP, according to the report. The scale of those objections indicates that concerns about the platform extend beyond its technical performance. Public confidence, transparency and the handling of sensitive information have become important considerations in assessing the contract’s future.

Dr Nicola Byrne, the government’s national data guardian for health and social care, urged ministers to give substantial weight to the issue of trust when making their decision. She highlighted evidence that a significant number of local organisations were reluctant to adopt the platform, citing concerns about Palantir and a preference for alternative solutions.

Her intervention adds another dimension to the debate. Even if a digital platform can improve some administrative processes, public confidence may be weakened if patients and healthcare organisations are uncomfortable with the company operating it. Trust is particularly important in a publicly funded health service, where patients may have limited choice over how their information is collected and used.

Opposition to the contract has also reached Parliament. Two parliamentary select committees have urged the government to end the agreement, including the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee. Martin Wrigley, a Liberal Democrat member of the committee, said the latest responses supported his longstanding concerns about the platform’s value.

Wrigley argued that imposing a single solution centrally could be ineffective when individual trusts have different requirements. He favoured an approach in which organisations could retain suitable local software while following common standards that allow systems to exchange information. Such interoperability could help NHS bodies coordinate care without requiring every organisation to adopt an identical platform.

Medact has similarly argued that the responses demonstrate the existence of alternatives and show that a safe transition away from Palantir could be possible. Its spokesperson, Dr Rhiannon Mihranian Osborne, called on the government to support NHS innovation and the specialist data professionals who work alongside clinical staff, rather than outsourcing key functions to major technology companies.

Sophie Don, chief executive of Voror, a patient data company that unsuccessfully competed for the contract, also argued that Palantir was not the only provider capable of delivering this type of technology. She suggested that existing UK-developed systems could offer greater value to the NHS and questioned whether the platform was meeting the needs of staff who had chosen not to use it.

Nevertheless, NHS England has defended the programme’s wider contribution. A spokesperson said 137 NHS trusts had reported benefits from the range of tools available through the platform, including improved information sharing, better coordination of patient care and more efficient working practices.

The contrasting assessments leave ministers facing a difficult decision. Ending the contract could require careful planning to protect continuity of service, preserve useful capabilities and ensure that information systems continue to function effectively. Extending it, meanwhile, would require the government to address concerns about value for money, local adoption, data governance and public trust.

The central question is whether the FDP provides benefits substantial enough to justify its cost and whether those benefits could be delivered through other arrangements. A credible assessment will need to distinguish between outcomes that can be demonstrated and claims that remain uncertain, while considering the needs of trusts that have found little reason to change their existing systems.

For patients and NHS staff, the outcome matters because digital technology should ultimately support better care rather than become an objective in itself. Effective information systems can help clinicians and administrators coordinate services, but their success depends on practical usefulness, reliable integration, appropriate safeguards and confidence among the people whose information they handle.

As the government approaches its decision, Palantir’s contract has become a wider test of how Britain procures technology for essential public services. The debate is no longer confined to whether a particular platform can perform specific functions. It also concerns how the NHS should balance national coordination with local flexibility, how public money should be evaluated and how patient trust should influence decisions about sensitive data.

The evidence presented by NHS organisations shows that there is no universal consensus on Palantir’s value. Some trusts report benefits, while others consider the platform unnecessary or less effective than their existing systems. Ministers must now determine whether the agreement offers sufficient demonstrable value to continue, or whether a more flexible approach to NHS data technology would better serve patients, healthcare professionals and the public.