A flagship Palantir NHS contract faces mounting scrutiny after freedom of information responses revealed that 29 hospital trusts listed by health officials as benefiting from the system are not actively using it. The £330m Federated Data Platform aims to unify patient records, but several trusts confirmed the software is not live.
Key points
- Freedom of information disclosures show 29 NHS trusts listed as realising benefits from Palantir software do not actively run its applications.
- The Office for Statistics Regulation confirmed it will review NHS England claims regarding hospital adoption and performance gains.
- Parliamentary committees and campaigners are urging ministers to activate a 2027 break clause to terminate the contract early.
- Palantir maintains that hospitals using its tools have achieved shorter discharge delays and scheduled more operations.
Discrepancies in hospital adoption
NHS England launched the Federated Data Platform (FDP) in 2024 to join up fragmented hospital databases. Officials designed the system to help clinical teams coordinate surgery schedules, allocate acute beds and track patient discharges across regional boundaries.
The central agency records 137 trusts as operational on the platform. However, freedom of information requests submitted by the medical charity Medact show that 29 trusts listed as achieving operational gains either have not deployed the software or do not use its applications.
Several hospital groups provided blunt assessments of their local progress. Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals stated that the organisation was not using the platform at the moment. Kent and Medway NHS Social Care Partnership Trust said staff had focused on other priorities and the system was not live. Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust confirmed it had not yet gone live with the software, while Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust said no implementation timeline had been agreed.
University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust went further in its disclosure, stating the platform was not live and the organisation had no intention of rolling it out in the future.
According to NHS England’s directory of live trusts, organisations appear on the operational register if central infrastructure links have been established. At Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust, officials acknowledged the trust was not operationally using the platform. NHS England marked the site as live because technical pipelines were set up to handle background data submissions rather than frontline care management.
Watchdogs examine performance statistics
The gap between national reporting and hospital operations has prompted regulatory intervention. The central health service previously credited the software with enabling 117,539 additional operations across participating sites within a single year.
Health officials later acknowledged during the summer that they could not demonstrate direct cause and effect between Palantir’s software and the rise in completed procedures. The Office for Statistics Regulation investigated the initial figures and confirmed it will examine the claims under its formal casework remit.
Health data leaders have raised concerns about how authorities measure digital progress. Marc Farr, who leads the NHS Chief Data and Analytics Officers Network, voiced alarm over the findings. He said accurate reporting was essential to maintain public trust, urging national managers to ensure efficiency metrics are verified and presented transparently.
Official publications, including the NHS federated data platform impact tracker, continue to assert that nearly 140 trusts gain value from the national procurement by improving data exchange and internal planning.
Mounting political and clinical pressure
The disclosures have amplified calls from politicians to cancel the commercial arrangement. The Commons science and technology committee and the Commons health select committee have both pressed ministers to reconsider the deal.
Chi Onwurah, chair of the science and technology committee, questioned the project’s delivery. “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,” she said. She called on the government to invoke a contractual break clause scheduled for 2027 and run a fresh tender for a UK-based data provider.
Health Secretary Yvette Cooper faces simultaneous pressure from medical professionals. Medact has campaigned against the procurement since its inception, citing concerns over public money, supplier transparency and patient data privacy. Dr Rhiannon Mihranian Osborne, a spokesperson for the group, questioned whether ministers were relying on flawed operational data to defend the project.
Palantir’s defensive campaign
Palantir has rejected the criticism and defended its clinical track record in British hospitals. A representative for the company pointed to performance improvements at participating sites, reporting 117,000 additional surgical procedures alongside a 14.3 per cent reduction in discharge hold-ups for long-stay patients and a 5.6 per cent gain in 28-day cancer diagnosis rates.
Louis Mosley, Palantir’s chief executive for the UK and Europe, argued that terminating the agreement would place politics ahead of patient outcomes. He characterised persistent criticism of the business as ideological hostility.
The US data analytics vendor has expanded its political operations in London to protect the contract. The company hired former Labour deputy leader Lord Tom Watson as a senior corporate lobbyist. Watson has released video briefings defending the infrastructure and denying that the software locks the public health service into proprietary vendor systems.
Both Watson and Mosley have sent letters directly to critical members of parliament. Labour MP Clive Lewis criticised the approach after receiving correspondence documenting how many times he had spoken against the business in public debates.
The health data challenge
The controversy surrounding the Palantir NHS contract highlights structural obstacles facing technology upgrades across the state health service. While central managers favour standard software to aggregate records, individual trusts manage distinct legacy databases, custom patient record tools and varied clinical priorities.
Trust IT directors often encounter difficulty deploying national applications when local engineering teams must maintain bespoke systems that doctors already use. Without local staff buy-in, central platforms risk sitting idle while hospital administrators use basic connections only to fulfill statutory reporting obligations.
Ministers must decide whether to enforce wider adoption across hesitant trusts or prepare alternative procurement plans before the contractual review window opens in 2027.
