Palantir lobbied UK health minister to consider extending AI into GP records, WhatsApps reveal

The messages, obtained by the tech equity campaign group Foxglove under the Freedom of Information Act and shared with the Guardian, run from July 2025 to March 2026. They appear to be between Palantir’s UK boss, Louis Mosley, and the then health minister Zubir Ahmed. In them, Palantir argued that “the logic of joining up primary and secondary [care] data is unarguable” and said its software was “ideal” for the task.

The push came after the Conservative government of Rishi Sunak announced the Palantir deal three years ago with the explicit statement: “GP data will not be part of the national platform.” Palantir’s existing contract runs the federated data platform (FDP), which the company says has helped cut surgery waiting times and discharge delays.

In the messages and a briefing document, Palantir urged Ahmed to “get out ahead of” likely “political” opposition from doctors and critics including the Green party leader, Zack Polanski, and Your Party, led by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana. The firm also told the minister that “the FDP is already delivering very strong results – but will deliver even more benefits faster with the right ministerial sponsorship.”

Groups representing doctors and patients, including the British Medical Association (BMA), have opposed the integration of GP data into Palantir’s platform, citing a lack of trust in a company that also works for the Israeli military and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Dr Tom Dolphin, chair of the BMA council, raised concerns about “scope creep” with Palantir potentially accessing identifiable personal data in GP records, which could “undermine patient trust and threaten the doctor-patient relationship”.

Donald Campbell, director of advocacy at Foxglove, said the WhatsApps showed Palantir “lobbying to hoover up yet more of the British public’s sensitive personal data”. He called it “appalling” that Palantir would press the minister to bring GP records into its platform “despite pledges from the government in 2023 that this would not happen”.

Marc Farr, chair of the NHS Chief Data and Analytical Officer Network, said Palantir “appears to be bidding to stretch the scope of its work for NHS England in a way that goes beyond statements from ministers and NHS leaders” and that two select committees had noted that public trust is essential.

Palantir said: “We’ve long argued that data sharing can improve the NHS, for patients and taxpayers, and that our software helps different NHS organisations to do that, while ensuring they maintain full local control over their data. We’ve also always been clear that it is for the government to decide how they roll the software out. These exchanges reflect both of those points.”

The lobbying comes as the health secretary, Yvette Cooper, last week told parliament the government’s review of the Palantir contract was ongoing, but said there was “a huge long-term benefit to using the NHS to develop UK sovereign AI”. Bloomberg also reported that Labour peer Tom Watson, hired as a full-time lobbyist by Palantir in September, recently wrote to Cooper urging her to keep the contract going. The Department of Health and Social Care declined to comment.