Minister gives Palantir's NHS platform a clean bill of health

The UK government has defended its decision to put Palantir at the heart of analytics in the National Health Service. The US spy-tech firm was awarded the contract to underpin the Federated Data Platform (FDP) after winning a succession of pandemic-era deals, worth a combined £60 million, without competition. Palantir's NHS rollout in England – Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland organize their services along different lines – has attracted heated criticism. Liberal Democrat MP Martin Wrigley last month led a debate in Parliament, saying he had seen evidence the FDP is awful to use, only benefits a quarter of its user organizations, and leaves the NHS owning no intellectual property for connecting software. "The current contract delivers a subscription service that leaves no deliverables after the subscription – no software, no improvements and no intellectual property after spending more than £330 million ," Wrigley told MPs. "All the specially written software and intellectual property rights belong to the supplier, says the contract. All the rights to any know-how are explicitly retained by the supplier and not passed across on termination of the contract. The contract delivers no software – not one line – just a subscribed service; a permanent lock-in; a single point of failure." Liberal Democrat health spokesperson Helen Morgan MP has since asked a written question in Parliament, seeking details on the advice the government received from officials on the value for money of the £330 million contract Palantir won in partnership with consultancies Accenture and PwC, as well as NECS, an NHS-owned service provider, and Carnall Farrar, a healthcare consulting and data firm. It was signed under the previous Conservative government. Labour junior health minister Zubir Ahmed responded in writing, saying the contract would allow 240 NHS trusts and integrated care systems to use the FDP. He noted that as a major national digital infrastructure programme, the FDP is formally part of the Government Major Projects Portfolio (GMPP), and the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) – a joint Cabinet Office-HM Treasury unit – assesses its progress, rating it "green," and has set out the projected benefits of the NHS FDP at £777 million. The Register notes NISTA sets the whole-life costs at £1.042 billion. Ahmed said the government commissioned Imperial College Projects to conduct an independent evaluation of the FDP, "in line with best practice and the programme's commitment to ensure the NHS FDP achieves maximum impact." "The NHS ran an independent procurement exercise to secure [the FDP] via a rigorous, competitive process in line with Government procurement legislation. The selection was made by multiple assessors against clear criteria following an open tender process where any supplier could respond with their solution. This included a value for money assessment as per standard procurement practice," Ahmed said. He also referred to NHS England numbers that say 123 NHS hospital trusts are live on the FDP while 80 are reporting benefits. There are around 200 trusts in England. The figures suggest 168 have signed up to the project. "The NHS England Programme Team work with trusts and integrated care boards to understand their plans to maximise the benefits of the NHS FDP for their patients and staff, with the breadth of capabilities and products continuing to expand," he said. The response doesn't appear to address the risk of lock-in, which Wrigley singled out in Parliament. "The contract delivers no software – not one line – just a subscribed service; a permanent lock-in; a single point of failure," he said. Ahmed's written response followed his statement to Parliament, in which he said that at the point of the break clause in the contract in spring 2027, the government would evaluate it and find out if there are other providers "that can do the job better." The government may look to break its FDP contract with Palantir for other reasons: digital sovereignty and promoting innovation among UK companies. After Wrigley questioned science minister Patrick Vallance on the Palantir break clause, he said the decision was in the hands of the Department for Health and Social Care, but promised to "do something very different" in the future. ®