Government will ‘decide later this year’ whether to end Palantir NHS contract

A health minister has refused to commit the Government to activating a break clause in its contract with tech firm Palantir for the federated data platform (FDP) – which includes GP patient data.

Dr Zubir Ahmed, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at DHSC, instead told MPs yesterday the Government ‘will decide later this year’ whether to extend the contract, ahead of a review period in the contract in February 2027.

It follows reports that Government ministers were actively considering triggering the break clause early, before this review period.

The FDP is intended to link data from across NHS organisations to support both planning and direct care, and began rolling out in NHS trusts in 2024. Palantir – a data analytics company known for its work with US intelligence and security agencies – was awarded a £330m, seven-year contract in 2023 to deliver the FDP.  

Responding to the debate at Westminster Hall on behalf of the Government, Dr Ahmed said: ‘It is right that there are break clauses in this contract to allow those evaluations to take place. … If at that point in the break clause, we evaluate and we find there are other providers that can do the job better, of course, then that needs to be looked at and reflected upon.

‘The contract has extension provisions and will be reviewed in line with standard contract management processes. We will decide later this year whether to extend it.  

‘NHS England will be transparent about this process and the evidence used, as we have been throughout our regular reviews are performed to this contract and the FDP.’  

Responding to patient data concerns put forward by MPs in the debate, Dr Ahmed said while he and health secretary Wes Streeting were ‘no fan’ of Palantir’s ‘politics’, the company ‘operates with strictly a UK-regulated contract where the NHS controls all data access’.  

The contract has previously drawn criticism from the BMA, which last year urged the NHS to cut all ties with the company – calling it ‘an unacceptable choice of partner’ to handle patient data.     

Palantir responded to this criticism by accusing the union of putting ‘ideology over patient interest’.  

Earlier this week, BMA GP committee chair Dr Katie Bramall had urged GPs to write to their MP to attend the debate, describing it as an opportunity to ‘increase pressure on the government to ditch Palantir’. 

MP Martin Wrigley, who brought forward the debate, also criticised the model of ‘one massive system to rule them all’ rather than building ‘interoperability’. 

Mr Wrigley argued that because all the software is owned by Palantir rather than by the NHS, the company ‘will not enable GPs to see hospital data or paramedics or anybody else.  

‘They will have to go through Palantir to see that data, and they will not be able to access your patient records from the hospital to the GP, or from the GP to the hospital or vice versa’, he said.