Palantir’s UK boss criticises ‘ideological’ groups as ministers move to scrap NHS contract
Louis Mosley says government should resist calls to trigger break clause in £330m deal with US analytics company Palantir’s UK boss has urged the government not to give in to “ideologically motivated campaigners” as government ministers explore a way out of a £330m NHS contract with the tech company.
Ministers have sought advice on triggering a break clause in Palantir’s deal to deliver the Federated Data Platform (FDP), amid questions over the company’s presence in the public sector. The FDP is an AI-enabled data platform designed to connect disparate health information across the NHS, while Palantir also has contracts with the Ministry of Defence, several police forces and the UK’s financial watchdog.
Louis Mosley, the executive vice-chair of Palantir in the UK, told the Times the government should resist calls to eject the company from NHS England’s data systems. “Having a review clause in a contract is good and normal practice. However, what some ideologically motivated campaigners are suggesting should happen would harm patient care and prevent some of the biggest challenges facing the NHS from being tackled,” Mosley said.
“That would be a mistake. The clear evidence of the past two years of delivery is that our software is helping. It is forecast to deliver £150m in benefits by the end of the decade, representing a £5 return for every pound spent.” The Financial Times reported on Sunday that ministers had taken soundings on triggering a break clause in the FDP contract when it becomes active next year.
Government officials have argued that it is feasible to transfer the running of the FDP, which Palantir is building, to another provider, the FT reported. Palantir, which takes its name from the all-seeing orbs in JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, is a US data analytics company that also works for the Israeli and US militaries and Donald Trump’s ICE operation.
The BMA, which represents NHS doctors, has said it has “long opposed the involvement of Palantir in the delivery of care and the use of patient data in our NHS”. Health officials have expressed fears that Palantir’s reputation will affect delivery of the FDP contract.
While the government is at pains not to feed speculation about the trigger clause, sources said there was a growing recognition that the issue of Palantir and potential reputation risk had moved beyond the Labour left and Greens, who have led criticism in the past.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson told the Guardian: “The NHS Federated Data Platform is helping to join up patient care, increase productivity, speed up cancer diagnosis and ensure thousands of additional patients can be treated each month – with strict requirements in place about data security and confidentiality.
“Every hospital trust and integrated care board has their own instance of the IT platform, with complete control over who has access.” Sources close to the health secretary, Wes Streeting, point to comments he made to the Guardian Politics Weekly podcast, in which he was asked about ethnical issues with engaging Palantir.
Asked if he recognised that people were worried about the deal with Palantir, given his history and the fact that it was founded by Peter Thiel, an influential figure on the American right, he said: “Yes… When you look at some of the things Palantir’s leaders have said in the States, when you look at their political views and their outlook…
If you were to put [Thiel] and some of those Palantir bosses on the political spectrum in the UK, they would be well off to the right of even Kemi Badenoch’s Conservative party.” However, he added that Palantir did not see the patient data handled by its systems.
“The platform they have given to us to improve our systems our performances, intelligence and tackling health inequalities, all of that is run by us, Palantir don’t see our patient data. Now I am in government I am in an even better position to assure myself and the public that that remains…