NHS England lists 29 hospital trusts as “realising benefits” from Palantir’s data platform. Those trusts say the system is not live, or that they do not use any of its applications. Robert Booth reported the findings for the Guardian on Monday.
The answers came from more than 100 freedom of information requests. Medact, a medical charity that campaigns to remove Palantir from the NHS, filed them and shared them with the Guardian. TNW has not independently verified the responses.
One senior health official called the gap between NHS England’s claim and the trusts’ answers “very misleading”, the Guardian reported.
What the trusts said
NHS England’s own figures say 142 trusts are live on the Palantir NHS data platform and 137 are reporting benefits. The £330m federated data platform began rolling out in April 2024. It aims to join up scattered medical records, speed up hospital discharges and improve surgery scheduling.
Epsom and St Helier said it was “not using FDP at the moment”. Mersey Care said it had “not yet gone live”, and Nottingham University Hospitals said “no implementation timeline has been agreed”.
“FDP is not live. We do not intend to roll it out in the future,” University Hospitals of North Midlands said.
Nearly 140 trusts “have now reported benefits from the wide range of tools available on the platform, helping staff join up and improve care for patients, and work more efficiently,” NHS England said.
NHS England has said before that its list includes trusts that use the tools for back-office data work, not for patient care. The Guardian reported that point. Torbay and South Devon, for example, said it is “not currently operationally using the FDP”. NHS England counts it as live because the systems for submitting data are in place.
“Palantir software is helping to deliver better care, with trusts using it recording 117,000 additional operations,” a Palantir spokesperson said.
NHS England’s figures are before-and-after comparisons. Its website says it “cannot draw conclusions about cause and effect” from them. The Office for Statistics Regulation will now look at the “realising benefits” claim, according to the Guardian.
Calls to end the contract
Chi Onwurah chairs the Commons science and technology committee. She wants the government to use the 2027 break clause in Palantir’s contract. She also wants an open competition for a UK-based supplier. The Commons health committee is also calling for ministers to end the deal.
“If many NHS trusts don’t see the value of the FDP, serious questions need to be asked about whether the hype surrounding Palantir’s products matches reality,” Onwurah said.
Louis Mosley, Palantir’s chief executive for the UK and Europe, said ending the contract would be “putting politics above patients”. Palantir has hired the former Labour deputy leader Tom Watson as a lobbyist. In September, 44,000 people objected to the platform.