In defence of Palantir
The Left has a new bogeyman : Palantir, the American company that develops data integration and analytics software.
Palantir is responsible for the NHS's Federated Data Platform (FDP), which is connecting data across hospitals, trusts and care services and provides tools to improve planning, reduce waiting lists and help staff make better-informed decisions. It's hardly particularly exciting stuff, but it is important.
According to the NHS, the FDP has already improved scheduling efficiency in operating theatres , leading to 110,078 additional patients undergoing procedures. It has integrated hospital records with social care teams, reducing delayed discharges by 15.3 per cent. By linking cancer diagnostic, patient, and treatment systems, it has increased the rate of diagnosis within 28 days by 6.8 per cent. It has also reduced waiting lists by 797,728 patients.
This clear success has not stopped Zack Polanski from calling for Palantir to "pack its bags and get the hell out of the NHS". Nor did it prevent Faiza Shaheen of Tax Justice UK, sounding like an uninformed, petulant child on BBC Politics Live, arguing that the company cannot be trusted with patient data.
Polanski and Shaheen appear to have little to no idea how the system actually operates. To start, Palantir does not own, have access to, or control patient data. That remains entirely in the trusts' control. Just like using Microsoft Word does not mean that Microsoft owns your data. If the NHS were to stop using Palantir's services, it could migrate the data and any applications built on the platform to another service. If anything, patient data is significantly more secure than before, as FDP carefully controls access and replaces whiteboards in full view on wards and spreadsheets saved in obscure locations.
The Green Party leader has called for Palantir to 'pack its bags and get the hell out of the NHS' - TOLGA AKMEN/EPA
The critics also target Palantir because of its politics and clients. The company is unashamedly pro-Western and, unlike some in Silicon Valley, is committed to supporting hard power in a more dangerous world. It was co-founded by Peter Thiel, who has well-known conservative views and backed Donald Trump. It provides services to the American military and immigration enforcement (which begun under the Barack Obama administration), as well as the Israel Defence Forces. It also provides services to Ukraine's military, often overlooked by the company's critics, though perhaps Shaheen would prefer that Volodymyr Zelensky forgo the best available technology to defend his nation too.
Faiza Shaheen has argued that the company cannot be trusted with patient data - Leon Neal/Getty Images
For those actually involved with the NHS , none of this is even remotely relevant. NHS England's recently retired chief executive, Amanda Pritchard, told a parliamentary committee the system is "already paying back". Tom Bartlett, who until recently led the engineering team building the platform within the NHS and has decades of experience in similar projects, has said: "In 20 years of working in the NHS, nobody came up with anything like the FDP". Despite claims that Palantir could be easily ripped out and replaced with a British equivalent, Bartlett has made it clear that there is "no credible alternative" and that if Palantir were removed, the "NHS would go backwards, not forwards".
Last time the NHS tried to build its own technology at this scale, it was a disaster. The NHS National Programme for IT, a project with similar goals in the 2000s, cost taxpayers around £10bn-£12bn but was so dysfunctional that it was ultimately abandoned. By contrast, Palantir's contract is worth £330m over 7 years – coming to just £200,000 per year per organisation. This is a minuscule cost compared to any imaginable alternative. The Treasury's infrastructure authority, NISTA, rates it green, a status achieved by only around 15 per cent of major government programmes. Over 123 trusts are already using it, and 80 have reported benefits.
A demonstrator smashes a Palantir sign as others block the entrance outside of the New York Stock Exchange, May 1 2026 - ADAM GRAY/REUTERS
FDP's current functionality, six products, is only just the beginning. Over time, it will become seamless for patients to move between the NHS and other services, with all caregivers across the system fully informed about patient needs. The NHS will soon begin to benefit from a marketplace of shared products built by a multitude of third-party developers. AI is also integrated across the system, so staff with little technical expertise will be able to develop their own applications and analytical outputs. This is like the iPhone , but in 2008. There is still so much more to come.
Ripping up all this would be an obvious, monumental mistake. It's hard to avoid the reality that the opponents of Palantir would prefer that patients die rather than use the best available piece of software. They have allowed a dumb and dangerous ideology to infect their brains. But rest assured, over time, this is more than likely to wash away. The patient benefits are just too colossal to ignore.
Matthew Lesh is Country Manager at Freshwater Strategy and a Public Policy Fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs
