Palantir AI tech unused or little used by 29 NHS trusts said to be benefiting from it

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Exclusive: Gap between NHS claim and trusts’ comments described as ‘very misleading’ by senior health official…

More than two dozen hospital trusts the NHS claims have benefited from Palantir’s medical data platform are not using all or most of the AI-powered technology, the Guardian can reveal.

The 29 hospital trusts that NHS England publicly lists as “realising benefits” from the controversial £330m federated data platform (FDP) have said the system is not live or they are not using any of its applications. The apparent gap between the NHS claim and the trusts’ understanding was described as “very misleading” by one senior health official.

It comes as the health secretary, Yvette Cooper, faces calls from MPs and campaigners to axe the US tech firm’s contract to deliver the flagship government AI system, which aims to connect scattered medical files, speed up hospital discharges and improve surgery scheduling among other potentially life-saving improvements.

Palantir’s UK and Europe chief executive, Louis Mosley, said ending its contract would be “putting politics above patients” and accused critics of “Palantir Derangement Syndrome”. The company has contracts to supply AI to the Israeli military and Donald Trump’s homeland security crackdown, while its billionaire founder, Peter Thiel, has questioned democracy, said tech companies can “unilaterally change the world” and called technology an “incredible alternative to politics”.

NHS England has previously faced scrutiny over how it has used data to defend the Palantir contract, which began in 2024. It claims 117,539 more operations were carried out by trusts using the FDP in a year, but this summer it conceded it could not prove cause and effect, and the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) watchdog ran an investigation.