Guardian: 29 NHS Trusts Claimed to Benefit from Palantir AI Platform Are Not Using It
A Guardian investigation via Freedom of Information requests reveals that 29 of the 137 NHS trusts listed by NHS England as 'realising benefits' from Palantir's £330m Federated Data Platform state the system is not live or unused. This gap, described as 'very misleading' by health officials, intensifies scrutiny on Palantir's UK government contracts.
An exclusive investigation by The Guardian has revealed significant discrepancies in the adoption of Palantir Technologies' £330 million Federated Data Platform (FDP) contract with the UK's National Health Service (NHS). While NHS England publicly lists 137 hospital trusts as 'live' with the platform and 'realising benefits,' 29 of these trusts stated in response to Freedom of Information requests that the system is either not live or they are not using any of its applications.
The findings, obtained by medical charity Medact through more than 100 FOI requests, highlight a stark contrast between official narratives and ground-level reality. For instance, Epsom and St Helier trust confirmed they were 'not using FDP at the moment,' while University Hospitals of North Midlands stated, 'FDP is not live. We do not intend to roll it out in the future.' A senior health official described this gap as 'very misleading.'
Louis Mosley, Palantir’s chief executive for UK and Europe, defended the contract, arguing that ending it would be 'putting politics above patients' and accusing critics of 'Palantir Derangement Syndrome.' However, UK Health Secretary Yvette Cooper faces growing calls from MPs and campaigners to axe the deal. Previously, NHS England claimed that trusts using the FDP carried out 117,539 more operations in a year, but conceded this summer that it could not prove cause and effect, prompting an investigation by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR).