Some English Hospitals Doubt Palantir’s Utility: We’d ‘lose Functionality Ratherthan Gain It’

English hospitals are voicing their concern about the functionality provided by Palantir, the US spy-tech firm that won a £330 million ($437 million) deal to run the Federated Data Platform for NHS England, as around a third of trusts go live on the system.

Trusts are organizational units within the National Health Services of England and Wales, and have some independence in the way they run hospitals and health units in their regions.

Key aspects of Palantir’s Federated Data Platform lack legal basis, lawyers tell NHS England

READ MORE

In a letter seen by The Register, the chief executive and chief digital information officer of Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust – a mega trust which oversees seven hospitals and treats around 1.5 million patients a year – said the trust would lose functionality if it adopted the FDP for some of its use cases.

Addressed to NHS England interim national director of transformation, Dr Vin Diwakar, and interim chief operating officer Dame Emily Lawson, the missive said the trust was exploring how the Inpatient Care Coordination solution (CCS) may benefit patients and staff.

“We already have services within the Trust that deliver outpatient care coordination, referral-to-treatment validation and discharge planning… From the descriptions we have of these FDP products we believe we would lose functionality rather than gain it by adopting them. We note with interest that there are ‘forthcoming features’ for some of these products, therefore when the national offer exceeds our local functionality, we will plan to utilize those services.

“We do believe that the FDP should be proactively engaging with [integrated care boards] to understand and support their data requirements, this is currently a significant gap in the NHS data architecture that FDP could reasonably support,” according to the letter, which was first obtained via a Freedom of Information request from campaign group Corporate Watch.

A spokesperson for Leeds Teaching Hospitals said: “At Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust we have reviewed the functionality of the FDP RTT validation product, and are currently working with the FDP team to implement it. We already have established services within the Trust to support the provision of outpatient care co-ordination and discharge planning, and we will continue to utilize these, whilst working closely with the FDP team to support the development of our existing services and explore new functionality.”

An NHS England spokesperson said: “The Federated Data Platform (FDP) is already delivering for the NHS – helping to join up patient care, increase hospital productivity and ensure thousands of additional patients can be treated each month.”

There are 215 trusts in the NHS in England, including acute (hospital), mental health, specialist or community trusts. NHS England, the Department of Health and Social Care quango, said more than 120 NHS trusts had signed up to use the FDP, including 84 percent of hospital trusts, and “72 are already live as part of a phased rollout to provide better care and services for patients.”

According to NHS figures, fewer than a quarter (45) of England’s 215 hospital trusts were actively using Palantir’s Federated Data Platform (FDP) by the end of 2024.

Two other trusts indicate concerns about the new platform’s functionality in recent reports.

News outlet Democracy for Sale quoted Greater Manchester’s “health authority” as saying there were “no products designed or produced by Palantir as part of the FDP programme that exceed the NHS Greater Manchester local capability.”

Similarly, Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust told the publication it had “no plans” to join the FDP programme.

Last year, as we reported here, the UK spent £8.8 million ($11.7 million) with consultancy KPMG cheerleading for the platform, “promot[ing] adoption of FDP,”and helping implemetation.

The Register has contacted Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and Greater Manchester Integrated Care Partnership (the local health authority), for a comment.

Palantir said the project was focusing on the 134 acute (hospital) trusts in the first year. During 2025, it plans to work in collaboration with community, mental health and ambulance providers on its non-acute core product offer.

Palantir was awarded the £330 million (c $437 million) seven-year contract to provide the NHS FDP in November 2023 after it won a series of deals with the NHS during and after the pandemic – without outside competition. Including extensions, the analytics software company has won a total of £60 million ($79 million) from the NHS without competing against other companies that provide similar software, starting from a contract worth just £1.

Palantir was founded with the help of CIA-backed investment fund In-Q-Tel and it attracted controversy by providing digital profiling tools for the CIA and US immigration agency ICE.

It was co-founded by Peter Thiel, who recently helped fund the political fortunes of US vice president JD Vance. CEO Alex Karp recently told investors that the aim of building Palantir was to “power the West to its obvious innate superiority.” ®

Original Source