Wes Streeting: Trigger the break clause and get Palantir out of the NHS

At the weekend, the Financial Times reported that “UK ministers have sought advice on triggering a break clause in Palantir’s contract as they come under mounting pressure to eject the controversial American company from NHS England data systems.“

Please add your name to our open letter to Health Secretary Wes Streeting, telling him to use the break clause as soon as possible to get Palantir out of the NHS.

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FULL OPEN LETTER TEXT:

Dear Secretary of State,

We welcome reports that your department is exploring the possibility of triggering the break clause in Palantir’s contract for the NHS Federated Data Platform.

This £330m contract was awarded under the previous Conservative government. Since then, concerns about Palantir’s role in the NHS have only grown. The British Medical Association has called on doctors to limit their engagement with the platform. MPs from across the parties have spoken out. And many hospital trusts have been reportedly slow to adopt the software because they simply do not find it useful.

Meanwhile, Palantir’s ties to the US defence and intelligence sectors, support for the Israel Defence Forces during the war in Gaza, and its co-founder and CEO’s vocal support for the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, have made its involvement in our health service increasingly untenable. 

Patients and health workers need to be able to trust that the systems handling their most sensitive data are run in the public interest – not by a company whose values are fundamentally at odds with the principles of the NHS.

The break clause in February 2027 is an opportunity to change course. We urge you to begin the process of triggering it now, and to commit to replacing Palantir with a trustworthy, transparent alternative – ideally one built in the UK and designed to serve patients, not shareholders.

The NHS’s data infrastructure is too important to leave in the hands of a company that has lost the confidence of doctors, patients and the public.