The withdrawal revives a dispute over how the health service has promoted the platform, and over whether claimed gains have been overstated. Palantir was hired to help manage vast quantities of medical data held by NHS England. Campaigners, MPs and doctors’ unions want the deal scrapped, often arguing that its effectiveness has been exaggerated.
The Guardian reported that 29 hospital trusts were not using the controversial patient-data technology, or were hardly using it.
Health bosses had published a list of all the NHS bodies they said were live on the AI-powered platform and drawing benefits from it. The system was set up to improve patient outcomes, raise operating-theatre efficiency and speed bed discharges.
After 29 trusts said the platform was either not live or that they were not using any of its applications, the original list appears to have been removed.
NHS England did not respond to requests for comment.
Critics have asked why NHS England spent years using what they called shaky evidence to promote the alleged benefits of Palantir software. One said that when the organisation makes such claims without checking them, “it destroys trust – and it has happened before”.
They warned that this latest overclaim could put more hospitals off using the platform and threaten its viability.
A senior Labour MP, calling for the contract to be scrapped, warned that the move threatened public trust.
Last week it was reported that ministers planned to extend Palantir’s deal, amid intense lobbying.
Palantir has said ending its contract would be “putting politics above patients”. Egan called the company a “sinister American surveillance firm” and said letting it hold a vital NHS contract “surrenders sovereignty over our most sensitive data and poses security risks”.
Coleman wants the NHS to drop Palantir and develop an open platform for health data, on which NHS trusts and British technology companies could build tools instead.