Many NHS trusts turn down Palantir data platform

NHS organisations caring for millions of people in England are choosing not to use Palantir's patient data platform, according to freedom of information responses, with many saying their existing systems are as good or better.

University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the Queen Elizabeth, Heartlands, Good Hope and Solihull hospitals and cares for more than two million people, said it had no plans to use the system, citing "limited expected benefit over existing solutions".

What the trusts said

The £330m federated data platform, run by the US company, was meant to join up NHS data to improve accuracy and efficiency. Some trusts said it had made it easier to manage waiting lists and schedule surgery. But others, from Gateshead to Truro, said they were declining to use it, or had tried it and gone back to their old systems.

A Suffolk trust said other systems "supersede" its functions, and Greater Manchester's integrated care board called it "duplicative" and "retrograde". Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust said it had "not offered significant improvements on local systems". The responses were gathered by Medact, a health campaign group that opposes Palantir's role in the NHS.

A decision for the government

Andy Burnham's government faces a decision on whether to use a break clause in the seven-year contract. Two parliamentary select committees have urged ministers to end it.

Martin Wrigley, a Liberal Democrat member of the Commons science and technology committee, said: "Palantir are great sales people but they over-promise and under-deliver." He called for trusts to keep their own software, with shared standards so systems can work together.

The national data guardian, Dr Nicola Byrne, has urged ministers to give weight to the "trust factor". More than 44,000 people have filed legal objections to their health data being used in the platform.

Palantir responds

Palantir accused Medact of "slanted analysis". "The FDP is, objectively, a successful programme," a spokesperson said, adding that it is one of only 20% of major government programmes with a green delivery rating, and that trusts including Chelsea and Westminster, Leicester and Norfolk have praised it.

It points to NHS figures showing trusts using the platform carried out 117,000 additional operations and cut discharge delays for long-stay patients by 14.3%. NHS England has added a caveat that it cannot draw conclusions about cause and effect from those figures.

Its senior vice-president, the former Labour deputy leader Tom Watson, has said that if other companies could do the job, "they would have taken part in free and open competition".

An NHS England spokesperson said 137 trusts had now reported benefits from the tools available on the platform.

Why it is controversial

Campaigners have also objected to Palantir's contracts with the Israeli military and with US immigration enforcement, and to the involvement of its co-founder, the billionaire Peter Thiel.