Councillors on the Joint Health Oversight and Scrutiny Committee (JHOSC) for Islington, Camden, Barnet, Enfield and Haringey have said they will ask our local health trusts and hospitals to review their use of Palantir Technologies products. Palantir is the US Spy tech company that has a contract to supply the NHS with software to bring patient data records together. Along with many other campaigners, we believe it is the wrong company to do this.

So on 30 January Islington Keep Our NHS Public made a deputation to the committee, explaining why we “Say No to Palantir in the NHS”. They agreed to look into it and have said it will be added to the agenda of their next meeting in March. They also and asked us to provide more information, which we are doing.

Here is the text of the deputation.

Palantir Technologies in the NHS: Our concerns

Late in 2023 NHS England signed a seven year contract worth £330 million with Palantir Technologies, the US spy-tech company that established its business in defence and intelligence using its Gotham software, and is now seeking to move into civil areas of government. A central aim of the NHS contract is to provide a Federated Data Platform to unify patient records from multiple sources. While there is general agreement that centralizing and linking patient data is an important step for the NHS, there is growing realization that Palantir is not the company to do it.

Why?

Quality – Local NHS trusts and data analysts have questioned the functionality of Palantir’s Foundry platform, saying that it is not as good as the custom systems they have created and are already using. Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust told NHS England in a private letter that adopting some of the tools on Palantir’s platform would lead it to “lose functionality rather than gain it.”

Vendor lock-in – Palantir retains all the IP rights to the systems it installs, so if a  contract ends it takes everything with it. This could limit the NHS’s future flexibility, stifle innovation from a broader competitive market, and result in substantial difficulty and cost if the NHS were to transition to a different system.

Unethical organization – Palantir is led by Peter Thiel, who is openly hostile to the NHS.  It provides military and surveillance technology and data analytics to governments around the world and works very closely with ICE, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement body, in their surveillance and deportation of migrants.

Harm to the NHS – The nature of Palantir’s activities will erode public confidence and, with it, permission to use patient data. Surveys show that as many as 50% of patients could opt out, which will be bad for the NHS and bad for medical research.

What can we do?  Use an alternative

Although NHS England would like to us to think signing up to Palantir is compulsory, a number of hospitals and trusts are deferring the use of its products.  Trusts and ICBS from Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh, Leeds, Manchester, East Kent and Hampshire have all said that adopting Palantir’s system would effectively be a backwards step as it isn’t an improvement on, or even equal to, systems already in operation.

They are part of a rising tide of opposition that includes the British Medical Association. It voted in June to lobby at a national level against the continued introduction of Palantir’s software into health data systems, and to terminate all existing contracts that the NHS holds with Palantir.

Our local hospitals and trusts reflect the uncertainty of the national picture. Research by the Good Law Project and Just Treatment, shows that only one hospital is actively using Foundry.

Who is using Palantir in the NCL ICB?

Using Palantir:

• Moorfields

Signed up but not started:

• Central and NW London NHS Foundation Trust
• Whittington 
• Royal Free
• Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital

Not using but under pressure to start

• Great Ormond Street
• UCLH
• North Middlesex

What JHOSC can do

We are asking JHOSC to contact your local and trusts and hospitals and review the penetration of Palantir. We’re here on behalf of local people to say No to Palantir in the UK. As part of a large and growing campaign, we come to you as our best hope of public accountability.

Sign these petitions to stop Palantir in the NHS.