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MPs call on NHS to scrap Palantir and its Federated Data Platform

Health and Social Care Committee urges health minister to get rid of US firm Palantir and its Federated Data Platform amid ‘mistrust’ and ‘contested benefits’

Lis Evenstad
By
Published: 09 Jul 2026 15:45

The Health and Social Care Committee has called on the government to part ways with controversial US data firm Palantir.

The MPs on the committee have written a letter to health innovation and safety minister Preet Kaur Gill, saying they are doubting the efficacy of the Federated Data Platform (FDP), citing public concerns about the platform and highlighting the possibility of alternative systems.

The Palantir-led consortium was chosen in autumn 2023 to lead the delivery of the platform, in a contract worth up to £360m over five years, with the option to extend taking the value to £480m.

However, there is a break clause in the contract, coming up in February 2027, and the committee has urged the government to ditch the US firm at that point.

The MPs on the committee have also asked health minister Gill to share what advice the department has had on the feasibility of getting a new contractor in place by March 2027.

The platform aims to help the NHS tackle the challenges it faces, such as enabling more effective, joined-up care, reducing waiting lists, and improving discharge efficiency, by linking up key information held in various IT systems across the health service.

The MPs on the committee have serious doubts about both the usefulness of the system and its actual use case.

“There is serious mistrust of the Palantir-created Federated Data Platform among both the general public and the medical profession,” the letter said. “We are seriously concerned that the lack of trust in how NHS data is used, managed and shared will act as a deterrent from people sharing their medical data and limit the ability of the NHS to release the benefits of the digital transformation that this government is seeking to deliver.”

Read more about the NHS and FDP

  • Around 30% of English hospitals that use Palantir’s FDP tools for scheduling are carrying out fewer procedures than before adoption, according to data from campaign group Foxglove.
  • In the first of an exclusive series of articles by the former deputy director of data engineering at NHS England, we examine the real story behind the NHS's controversial Palantir software project.
  • The question is no longer whether the Federated Data Platform has delivered enough, but whether the NHS will have the data infrastructure to deploy AI before the workforce crisis forces the issue.

The committee also questioned NHS England on the success of the platform, and was told by NHS England that there is no concrete conclusion about whether the FDP was the cause of benefits cited by the organisation.

It argued in its letter that there are other tools that can deliver the same benefits as the current FDP, something which was highlighted in 2025 by the Chief Data and Analytical Officers Network.

More than 150 NHS trusts have now signed up to use the FDP, however, as Computer Weekly reported in March 2025, this does not necessarily mean they endorse use of the platform.

Many integrated care boards across the country have previously made significant investments in local data infrastructure, as directed by NHS England, and the transition to the FDP has raised concerns about the risk of losing existing functionality.

The Health and Social Care Committee are also worried about the perceived benefits of the system.

“The evidence of the benefits of the current FDP is contested. While the NHS website currently lists several benefits the FDP is delivering, many of the reported benefits are based purely on comparing performance before and after the tool is introduced, without demonstrating that the improvement was due to the FDP’s introduction,” the letter said, urging the NHS to drop the contract completely.

Health and social care committee chair Layla Moran said: “Little by little, the government’s arguments for sticking with the FDP has unravelled.

“So, in the interest of public confidence in the NHS and the security of their medical information, we believe it is time to crack on with preparations to find an alternative in time for spring 2027. The FDP may have had some advantages, but there are also downsides, and it is evidently not the only show in town.”

Controversy from the start

The involvement of Palantir in NHS data projects has attracted controversy from UK civil liberties organisations, such as Privacy International, OpenDemocracy and law firm Foxglove. This is largely because its chairman and co-founder is Peter Thiel, reputed to be a right-wing libertarian and a Donald Trump supporter. 

To alleviate these worries, NHS England wrote into the contract that Palantir is forbidden to use patient data for commercial gain and stipulated that although it will be paid for its services, it will have no right to use patient data except as required by the client.

However, some remain supportive of the system. Tom Bartlett, founder of Bartlett Data Ltd and former deputy director of data engineering at NHS England, where he led on FDP, told Computer Weekly:

“The committee’s recommendation is highly concerning because it arises from a session where the leader of the anti-Palantir campaign was invited to sit as a member of the committee panel, not as a witness. The witnesses in the first session were not close to FDP at all and could not accurately represent it.

“The minister was shut down by the panel when explaining the benefits. This undermines the credibility of the recommendation, which is clearly not grounded in technical fact and is sympathetic to a political movement that has itself been instrumental in stoking the public concern mentioned in its own letter. Looking closely at the evidence presented to the committee, it is clear there is no alternative to the current supplier in time for the break clause, something their lines of enquiry failed to explore.”

In a recently published opinion piece penned for Computer Weekly by Bartlett, he also highlighted the issue around the lack of explanation of the benefits FDP brings:

He said the current debate remains “stuck on procurement, supplier identity and backward-looking benefits numbers”, while, according to him, the FDP is “the only operational data platform in the NHS that could provide the foundation for deploying clinical AI at scale”.

“Most trusts have adopted only a handful of nationally built products for narrowly defined use cases, rather than embracing the platform’s full potential to run services across all settings,” said Bartlett.

“The FDP debate needs to catch up. The question is no longer whether the platform’s theatre scheduling product has delivered enough additional operations. The question is whether the NHS will have the data infrastructure to deploy AI that is already outperforming physicians in controlled settings, before the workforce crisis forces the issue.”

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