29 trusts listed as 'realising benefits' from Palantir's NHS platform say they are not using it

Twenty-nine hospital trusts that NHS England publicly lists as realising benefits from Palantir's medical data platform have said the system is not live at their hospitals or that they are not using any of its applications, responses to freedom of information requests show.

The Federated Data Platform (FDP) is delivered under a controversial £330m contract. The AI-powered system aims to connect scattered medical files, speed up hospital discharges and improve surgery scheduling. According to NHS England's website, 137 trusts are 'live' with the FDP.

But replies to more than 100 freedom of information requests show that 29 of the trusts described as realising benefits said they were either not using the system or not using its apps. One senior health official described the gap between the NHS claim and the trusts' own understanding as 'very misleading'.

The trusts were blunt. Epsom and St Helier said it was 'not using FDP at the moment'. Kent and Medway said the trust 'has been focused on other priorities' and the FDP is not currently live. Mersey Care said it had 'not yet gone live with the FDP'. Nottingham University Hospitals said 'no implementation timeline has been agreed', and University Hospitals of North Midlands said: 'FDP is not live. We do not intend to roll it out in the future.'

The findings have intensified calls for the health secretary, Yvette Cooper, from MPs and campaigners to axe the US tech firm's contract. Palantir's UK and Europe chief executive, Louis Mosley, said ending the contract would be 'putting politics above patients' and accused critics of 'Palantir Derangement Syndrome'.

NHS England has previously faced scrutiny over how it has used data to defend the Palantir contract, which began in 2024. It claims 117,539 more operations were carried out by trusts using the FDP in a year, but this summer conceded it could not prove cause and effect. The Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) ran an investigation and now says it will take the claim about trusts 'realising benefits' forward under its casework function.

Chi Onwurah, chair of the Commons science and technology committee, said: 'If many NHS trusts don't see the value of the FDP, serious questions need to be asked about whether the hype surrounding Palantir's products matches reality.' She called on the government to activate the 2027 break clause in Palantir's contract and launch an open competition for a UK-owned and based supplier to handle patient records. The Commons health select committee is also calling for ministers to pull Palantir's deal.

The FOIs were obtained by Medact, a medical charity campaigning for Palantir to be ejected from the NHS, and shared with the Guardian. Medact spokesperson Dr Rhiannon Mihranian Osborne said: 'Our NHS institutions are meant to work in the interests of public trust and evidence-based healthcare, not use creative accounting to justify a deeply controversial contract.' She asked whether ministers, if they are using these flawed claims to make their decision, are being misled.

Asked to respond, NHS England insisted nearly 140 trusts 'have now reported benefits from the wide range of tools available on the platform, helping staff join up and improve care for patients, and work more efficiently.' It has previously said its list of trusts reporting benefits includes those using the tools for back-office data analysis and submission rather than to support patient care. Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust, for example, said it is 'not currently operationally using the FDP' but is recorded by NHS England as 'live' because infrastructure is in place to support data submission rather than active operational use of FDP apps.

Marc Farr, chair of the NHS Chief Data and Analytics Officers Network, said: 'I am concerned to hear that there are 29 trusts reported as receiving benefits but when asked are not actually using the tool.' He said it is crucial for public support that benefits are reported accurately, transparently and in a way that can be properly verified.

A Palantir spokesperson said: 'Palantir software is helping to deliver better care, with trusts using it recording 117,000 additional operations, a 14.3% reduction in discharge delays for long stay patients and a 5.6% improvement in the number of people finding out whether or not they have cancer within 28 days.'