Ministers face December decision on Palantir NHS deal as MPs ask whether an exit plan exists

Chi Onwurah, who chairs the Commons science and technology committee, asked the health minister James Frith to confirm whether an exit plan from the Palantir contract has been prepared. According to The Register, Frith wrote to the committee in October saying the contract includes measures to facilitate exit and transition, including clear intellectual property rights in NHS build products or components, but that publishing more detail would, or would be likely to, prejudice commercial interests and NHS England's ability to secure best value for taxpayers in future commercial activity.

The questions follow freedom of information requests by the medical charity Medact, shared with the Guardian, which found that 29 of the 137 trusts NHS England lists as "realising benefits" said they were either not using the system or not using any of its applications, about 21% of the total. NHS England's September figures list 142 trusts as live on the platform. A senior health official quoted by the Guardian described the apparent gap as "very misleading".

The platform is intended to bring together operational data held in separate NHS systems so staff can work more efficiently, according to NHS England. The relationship between Palantir and the health service began during the pandemic, when contracts worth £60m were awarded without competition, and NHS England awarded the federated data platform contract in November 2023.

In response to an FoI request in July, University Hospitals of North Midlands said the FDP is not live and the trust does not intend to roll it out in future, saying a variety of factors prevent rollout but primarily that it does not appear to provide functionality over and above what the trust already has. Nottingham University Hospitals said “no implementation timeline has been agreed”, Epsom and St Helier said it was “not using FDP at the moment”, Mersey Care said it had “not yet gone live with the FDP”, and Kent and Medway said the FDP was not currently live.

NHS England said 137 trusts had 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. It has previously said the list includes trusts using the tools for back office data analysis and submission rather than to support patient care. Torbay and South Devon said it was “not currently operationally using the FDP”, but NHS England records it as live because infrastructure is in place “to support data submission, rather than active operational use of FDP apps”.

A Palantir spokesperson said: “Palantir software is helping to deliver better care, with trusts using it recording 117,000 additional operations, a 14.3% reduction in discharge delays for long stay patients and a 5.6% improvement in the number of people finding out whether or not they have cancer within 28 days.” The Register reported the company separately maintaining that its software was playing an important role in improving patient care and helping to deliver 100,000 additional operations, a 12% reduction in discharge delays and the removal of 675,000 patients from waiting lists.

NHS England has previously faced scrutiny over how it used data to defend the contract. It claims 117,539 more operations were carried out by trusts using the FDP in a year, but this summer conceded it could not prove cause and effect. The Office for Statistics Regulation investigated and said it would be "taking this forward under our casework function", having told NHS England in July to ensure greater accuracy in quoting figures after a row over data used to promote the platform's benefits.

Onwurah said: "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 called on the government to activate the 2027 break clause in the contract and launch an open competition for a UK-owned and based supplier to handle patient records. The Commons health select committee is also calling on ministers to pull the deal.

Medact spokesperson Dr Rhiannon Mihranian Osborne said: "Our NHS institutions are meant to work in the interests of public trust and evidence-based healthcare, not use creative accounting to justify a deeply controversial contract. There is no good reason for the government to continue this failing project."

Marc Farr, chair of the NHS Chief Data and Analytics Officers Network, said: "I am concerned to hear that there are 29 trusts reported as receiving benefits but when asked are not actually using the tool." He said it was crucial for public support that benefits are reported accurately, transparently and in a way that can be properly verified.

Palantir has been pushing back against criticism. Its UK and Europe chief executive, Louis Mosley, said ending the contract would be "putting politics above patients" and accused critics of "Palantir Derangement Syndrome". Last month the company hired Labour's former deputy leader Tom Watson, a member of the House of Lords, as a full-time senior lobbyist; he and Mosley have written to critical MPs in letters counting the times those MPs have spoken out against the company, which Labour's Clive Lewis described as "very Big Brother".