Palantir’s UK contracts face scrutiny over NHS data platform performance

A year-long investigation by Democracy for Sale has raised questions about Palantir's role in the British state, focusing on the US tech firm's £330 million federated data platform (FDP) contract with the NHS. The investigation, published in the London Review of Books, drew on interviews with NHS whistleblowers and Palantir staff, confidential documents, and new data. Internal usage data released under the Freedom of Information Act showed that dozens of trusts NHS England says are using the FDP appear not to have logged into a single FDP app in the past year. The Cancer 360 tool, praised by Keir Starmer as "groundbreaking new technology," was used by just six out of about 200 trusts in the nine months since its launch. Some NHS analysts reported that basic queries on the FDP can take five minutes or more, and an orthopaedic surgeon in Birmingham stopped using Palantir's waiting-list app because he could not edit the data. The investigation also detailed how Palantir hired Peter Mandelson's lobbying firm Global Counsel in 2018 to position itself as a partner to the British government, with a monthly retainer worth more than £30,000 and an internal code name of Project Onion. The UK Statistics Authority is now investigating NHS England's use of data in promoting the benefits of Palantir's software, and two select committees have called on the government to exercise a "break clause" when the FDP comes up for renewal next year.

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Sources: The Guardian