UK Government and Palantir must correct public record after NHS admits published data does not back up FDP benefit claims
Following revelations that the UK government has admitted its claims about the benefits to the NHS from US spy tech firm Palantir’s tools are not substantiated, tech justice non-profit Foxglove has called on the Health Secretary to publicly correct the record.
Government ministers – and Palantir – have long promoted benefits from the Federated Data Platform (FDP), software provided by the US tech giant. A page on NHS England’s website titled: ‘NHS Federated Data Platform uptake and benefits’ includes a number of claims, such as “111,589 – Total number of additional patients undergoing procedures in theatres”.
However, the Government has in recent months added a qualification to a little-noticed methodology document, which admits that they can’t actually confirm that the increased number of procedures are due to the use of the FDP platform. Under the heading ‘Total number of additional patients undergoing procedures in theatres,’ the methodology document now admits that:
“This is an observational before/after comparison showing changes to this metric following the introduction of the NHS FDP Inpatient theatre module. We cannot therefore draw conclusions about cause and effect as other variables have not been controlled for.”
It is not clear when this admission was added, but it does not appear to have been present in archived versions of the page from early 2026.
Foxglove wrote to the Health Secretary on Tuesday 16 June, asking him to confirm when this change was made, and why it has not also been used in statements to Parliament or to the public. In the letter, Foxglove asks James Murray to:
- withdraw the NHSE ‘NHS Federated Data Platform uptake and benefits’ webpage, and undertake and publish a full independent review of its contents – with a particular view to whether they mislead the public, media or parliamentarians.
- commit to publishing the detailed breakdowns of performance at individual NHS trusts which are necessary for a proper assessment of the FDP’s performance
- commit to publishing the necessary contextual information to assess the FDP’s performance – including outcomes from trusts which are not making use of the FDP’s tools.
- publish corrections to ministerial statements on the benefits of the FDP, in order to include the crucial detail that NHSE “cannot…draw conclusions about cause and effect”.
The news that the benefits that have been attributed to Palantir’s FDP by NHS England are not evidenced by the data made publicly available for that purpose comes at a critical time for the future of the £330m FDP contract. It was reported in April than ministers are actively considering whether to trigger UK government’s break clause for that contact.
Should the UK government decide to trigger the break clause it would follow the cancellation of Palantir’s contract with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) for running the Homes for Ukraine scheme and moving to an in-house model, which has been reported to have saved UK taxpayers millions of pounds.
Donald Campbell, advocacy director at Foxglove, said:
“It is staggering that ministers have quietly acknowledged that their claims about Palantir’s benefits to the NHS do not stand up. But it is truly appalling that they have not thought to share this information with parliamentarians or the wider public.
“Ministers have a crucial opportunity this year to decide to bring Palantir’s role in the NHS to an end. It’s essential that the public and parliamentarians are provided with the real story as this takes place. Instead, we’ve been airily told by both health ministers and Palantir’s UK manager about the huge benefits the platform is supposedly bringing to the NHS. Meanwhile, the information that fatally undermines those claims has been quietly added to an obscure document.
“The reality is that there should be no place in our public services for a Trump-supporting spy tech firm, whose chair believes democracy and freedom are incompatible. There is surely now no credible argument left against removing Palantir from the health service.”