NHS may not be able to replace Palantir before £330m deal deadline
The NHS may not be able to replace Palantir before a crunch deadline on its £330m data contract, raising the stakes for ministers as pressure mounts to cut ties with the US tech giant.
The warning comes as ministers weigh Palantir’s future and campaigners ramp up pressure to ditch the company, with more than 44,000 people lodging formal objections to their data being processed through the platform.
The company said its customers use open-source frameworks including Python and Apache Spark, describing interoperability as a “core Palantir design principle”.
But the government has admitted the practical timetable for replacing the FDP could prove more difficult.
In a letter to the Health and Social Care Committee seen by City AM, health minister James Frith said officials were still assessing the “continuity and reliability” of the service.
“If it is determined that a successor contract is required… due to timelines required for normal government procurement processes it is unlikely that a new contract could be in place by March”, he said.
Palantir hits back over NHS benefits
The looming decision comes amid a separate row over whether the platform is delivering what taxpayers were promised.
The NHS Chief Data Officers Network recently said the FDP had been “unable to demonstrate the level of evidence, confidence and realised value expected”.
Palantir pushed back, pointing to government estimates that the platform will deliver £808m of benefits and £4.92 for every £1 spent.
It says trusts using its software had recorded over 117,000 additional operations, a 14.3 per cent reduction in discharge delays for long-stay patients and a 5.8 per cent average improvement against the NHS’s 28-day Faster Cancer Diagnosis Standard.
Last Friday, over 44,000 people used Article 21 of UK data protection law to object to their information being processed through the FDP.
But the company stressed it acts las a data processor, while NHS bodies remain the controllers of whether information is used and for how long.
“Palantir does not have access to data beyond what our customers authorise”, the company told City AM.