Scroll down for
⇒ 1: The NHS Data Grab
⇒ 2: Data and Big Tech
⇒ 3: Updates
⇒ 4: Links
⇒ 5: Archived NHS Data Grab
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⇒ 1: NHS Data Grab
What’s happening?
fom OpenDemocracy
The English Health Secretary is trying to slip through a massive change to how NHS patient data is handled. He wants to take the patient records which GPs hold on everyone in England, and enter them all into one massive database. And he wants to make this data available to “third parties” – including private companies.
This plan would mean incredibly sensitive data about all of us who use the NHS – including sexual health, mental health, criminal records – being pooled and shared.
The plan was announced quietly, via a single website. Health data could be used for the good of the NHS. But any changes to how our health data is handled must be done in a transparent, trustworthy, legal way. The scheme is being rushed through by stealth. Patients have been denied a meaningful say in what happens with their data. No safeguards have been included to prevent private companies using our data for their own profit.
for more information from Open Democracy
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NHS data – an incredibly valuable public asset
From Foxglove
The NHS holds a huge amount of health data. In fact, it’s the largest set of structured, machine-readable health data in the world. The data is so good thanks to the fundamental values of the NHS as a health service that cares for everyone – that means the data covers all of us, across the UK, regardless of wealth or background.
Responsible use of this data can be of huge benefit, helping improve care and develop new treatments. Patient data has helped the response to Covid, and, with proper safeguards to protect the public interest, more could be done in the future. One estimate of the value of patient data to the NHS puts it at a staggering £10 billion per year.
An asset to be stripped?
Private corporations have also spotted the value of NHS data – and are keen to cash in. They are seeking contracts from the government to provide outsourced data services to the NHS. These contracts can be lucrative in themselves – Palantir’s latest contract is for £23million – but the even bigger prize is access to the data itself. Many companies see public data as a resource they can exploit to develop highly profitable new products and services.
for more information from Foxglove
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Palantir – An Unfit Partner for our NHS
From Foxglove:
“Palantir is not a health company. It specialises in supporting government agencies to use surveillance and big data technology to identify and target people in conflict zones, at our borders, or for policing. Palantir’s corporate ethos is a strange fit for a universal public health service like our NHS. Palantir is used to working with soldiers, spies and police officers – not doctors, nurses or other health professionals focused on caring for patients. “
for more information about Palantir from Foxglove
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From “The Good Law Project” and “Just Treatment”:
NHS England is rolling out software to run our health records from Palantir – a US spy-tech firm that has supported mass deportation in the US and enabled genocide in Gaza. One of Palantir’s founders is also openly against the NHS. Peter Thiel claimed it “makes people sick” and said that the British people love the NHS because we’re suffering from Stockholm syndrome. We can’t let a company like this take control of our healthcare system.
We can fight back right now. We’ve set up a simple tool so you can find out if your local NHS trust has started using the software, and then send an email demanding they say no to Palantir.
for information and formatted email
With the government putting NHS trusts under pressure to adopt the software, we need to act right now. If you want to keep Palantir out of our NHS, send an email to your local trust and Wes Streeting, secretary of state for health.
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No Palantir in the NHS! Campaign Toolkit
From Medact:
This resource is developed to help community groups, health workers, BDS activists and patients organise against Palantir in the NHS. It contains months of research and investigation, and should help you to get started on organising within your community, trade union, hospital and beyond.
for information and links on the Medact website including:
What is Palantir?
What is the NHS FDP Contract?
Outsourcing, privatisation and quality concerns
Draft open letter to Trustees
Medact Leaflets
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KONP / Hackney Coalition Against Palantir
for a short summary of Hackney KONP’s work with the Hackney Coalition against Palantir (8th December 2025)
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Mandelson, Palantir and the NHS
Lucy Nichols (National KONP) writes:
“As ICE continues to terrorise civilians in the US, Palantir is under even more pressure. It would be legitimate to call for an end to the Palantir contract solely based on the company’s ties to war and militarism, or indeed its lack of expertise in dealing with health data. However, that this private company is causing harm to the NHS, and putting our data at risk, makes this argument far stronger. The opaque circumstances under which Palantir was awarded the NHS contract in the first place further undermines its position. The British Medical Association (BMA) has called for a ‘move away’ from Palantir. BMA President Tom Dolphin argued that “there must be a complete break from Palantir technologies in the NHS and no further contracts awarded.”
for the full article (6th February 2026)
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Palantir – FOI Questions to local NHS Providers and ICBs
Many thanks to the Socialist Health Association FOI Group for this excellent series of questions on Palantir involvement:
1. Please confirm whether you are or are not utilising any aspects of the Federated Data Platform (FDP) in your organisation.
2. Please provide copies of all internal or published reports at Board and Senior Management levels at which the merits or de-merits of the FDP have been discussed or debated.
3. Please indicate which FDP products a) are in current use, b) are in development within your organisation c) you intend to bring into use and d) where use has been rejected.
4. Please detail which data storage, retrieval and analytical systems in use within your organisation overlap or duplicate the use of FDP products. Please provide details of your plans with regard to the future use of these systems.
5. In view of the fact that Palantir Technologies UK is the lead contractor and data processor for the FDP, please provide copies of all reports detailing development, evaluation, cost implications and risk assessments associated with bringing Palantir products into use within your organisation. Who is the lead for this evaluation within your organisation and how are the results communicated?
6. How have you evaluated the impact of participating in a Palantir-led system on public trust in the NHS and in public confidence in the confidentiality of patient-clinician interactions? Please provide copies of any reports or meeting minutes that record the results of such evaluations.
7. How has your organisation considered the risk of reputational damage to the NHS arising from involvement with Palantir, in view of its US roles with ICE as recently reported in the BMJ (ICE and Palantir: US agents using health data to hunt illegal immigrants, Published 27 January 2026). Please provide copies of any reports or meeting minutes that record the results of such assessments.
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KONP Leaflet – Keep Private Companies Away from our NHS Data
to view and print or order leaflets
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⇒ 2: Data and Big Tech
National KONP Health Data Working Group
KONP supports the use of personal health data in research, service planning and the development of new technologies when in the public interest and when ethics and human rights are put first. We believe that the exploitation of our health data for profit should be resisted as actively as the privatisation of the NHS. In addition, Big Tech and the organisations that use our data to develop and Artificial Intelligence should be regulated so that the interests of people are put before profit.
for further information and links from National KONP including:
The Data (Use and Access) Act 2025
Big Tech at the heart of the NHS Ten Year Plan
Public Clouds
What threats does “Big Tech” pose for our personal health data
Digitalisation and the NHS
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Open Rights Group
Hands Off Our Data!
Your data can get used against you and attacks on your rights mean you’ll have less ability to do anything about it.
for the Open Rights Group website
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⇒ 3: Updates
February 2026 (on openDemocracy website, unsure when posted): Don’t share our health data for profit
From “openDemocracy”:
“We created a coalition of five organisations (Just Treatment, Doctors’ Association UK, the Citizens, openDemocracy and the National Pensioners Convention) and David Davis MP and threatened legal action over the GP Data Grab. Our threat of injunction forced the British government to pause the collection of 55m people’s health data for two months and they’ve now given the public a new opt-out date of 25 August.
Further update: The government has now dropped the 25 August deadline and said that the upload will be paused to enable safeguards to be put in place around the security of the research environment and the opt out – but many questions remain about how robust these safeguards will be.”
21st November 2023: US firm awarded £330m national data contract
From “Just Treatment”:
“After months of delays – that you helped to secure – the government has just confirmed that the contract for the NHS Federated Data Platform has been awarded to US spy tech company Palantir. I know that, like all of us in the Just Treatment team, you will have deep concerns about this news and what it means for the future of our NHS and your health.
Patient trust is absolutely critical to any public health system. In pressing ahead with this hugely controversial plan, the government has violated the trust of millions of NHS patients. This could have serious implications for how people choose to engage with NHS services going forward.
For months our movement has fought to expose and challenge these plans. We’ve lobbied politicians, submitted petitions, spoke out in the press and so much more. I want to thank you for all that you have contributed to this huge effort. We know that the government felt pressure from us along the way. But shamefully, they chose to prioritise the interests of private corporations like Palantir over the concerns of the people they’re supposed to represent.
However, this is not the end of the road. Because of the federated nature of the data platform, local trusts and ICS bodies across the NHS in England each have to make a call on whether or not they will participate in it. There are still many unanswered questions about exactly how the FDP will be implemented. We will keep doing all we can to fight for transparency, proper patient consent, and an end to health profiteering. We are digesting today’s news with our partners Foxglove, the National Pensioners Convention and the Doctors Association UK, and will share more soon on the legal challenge to these plans that we’ve been pursuing together.”
From Foxglove:
“I’m afraid it’s bad news. The government has just announced that they’re giving the NHS Federated Data Platform contract to Palantir. Foxglove and partners have fought these plans tooth and nail for months. Thousands of you got involved in the campaign. You signed petitions, wrote letters to MPs and ministers, spread the word, and donated to fund the work. Dozens of other organisations representing patients and NHS workers worked alongside us in the Stop Palantir coalition.
This is a huge setback. But it isn’t over. Palantir may have won the contract. But HUGE questions remain about how the NHS Federated Data Platform will work. Foxglove will fight for safeguards to limit the damage caused by giving such a shady company this role in our NHS. And we will fight for patients to be given real choices in how their data is used in the new system – including a right to opt out of their data being exploited by private companies. We will also continue our legal challenge with Just Treatment, the National Pensioners Convention and the Doctors’ Association UK. More on that soon.
Today’s announcement was initially due in September and the repeated delays, reportedly due to concerns about public opposition, gave us hope. We knew how entrenched support for Palantir was at the top of government – but we hoped last week’s change of Health Secretary could mean a change of position. Ultimately, though, it wasn’t quite enough. Palantir ran a slick and expensive lobbying operation. They also took full advantage of the pandemic, getting themselves in prime position for this multi million pound contract by originally offering their services for a covid project for just £1. This time, the Big Tech corporation won.
We can still be proud of everything we’ve done to date. We’ve managed to create real friction around the deal, and to force Palantir onto the defensive. We started this work during the pandemic, when Palantir first won a no bid contract to manage our Covid related NHS health data. Since then and together with partners we’ve forced the UK government to publish secret Covid-related contracts between tech firms (including Palantir) and the NHS and to consult the public before extending those ‘data deals’ beyond the pandemic. We launched the #NoPalantirInOurNHS coalition with over 40 other groups and published a detailed report into the risks with the deal – which thousands of you emailed to your MPs. We’ve also continued to raise concerns and questions across parliament including with the chair of the influential Health Select Committee.
Palantir may have won this contract, but a huge amount is still at stake. We will be back in touch soon with an update on the next phase of the campaign – and how you can help.”
18th November 2023: NHS info
Information from NHS Digital is here
16th November 2023: Read our email to North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board – NO to Palentir
We will keep you informed of all responses.
12th July 2023: NHS Crisis: Who Profits
Talk given by Martin Blanchard (KONP data Working Group / Doctors in Unite) for the ‘NHS Crisis: who profits?’ meeting KONP Merseyside 12th July 2023
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⇒ 4: Links
Bloomberg UK (30th September 2022) Peter Thiel’s Palantir Had Secret Plan to Crack UK’s NHS: ‘Buying Our Way In’
OpenDemocracy (4th June 2021) Legal threat sharpens over UK government plans to harvest patient data from GPs
The Guardian (30th May 2021) The Guardian view on medical records: NHS data grab needs explaining
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⇒ 5: Archived NHS Data Grab
konpnortheast.com 