NHS hospitals are being urged by doctors, human rights groups and campaigners to reconsider using a major data platform supplied by US technology company Palantir, whose co-founder and major shareholder Peter Thiel is a close ally of US President Donald Trump.

The intervention centres on the NHS Federated Data Platform, a system designed to bring together operational information from across the health service so hospitals can analyse it more easily and improve how care is delivered.

The platform is intended to connect data on waiting lists, hospital capacity, discharge planning and patient pathways, allowing staff to manage demand and allocate resources more effectively. Supporters say it is already helping the NHS treat more patients and reduce pressure on services.

But critics say the scheme raises wider questions about privacy, ethics and the role of large technology companies in handling sensitive public sector data.

NHS England awarded the contract for the platform to a Palantir-led consortium in 2023 in a deal worth up to £330m over seven years. The company says the software is already improving how the health service functions, but campaigners are calling on local trusts and integrated care systems to reject or reconsider adopting it.

Medact, one of the groups opposing the rollout, has published a briefing urging NHS bodies to rethink their involvement. Campaigners argue that NHS organisations should favour local or in-house data systems instead of becoming reliant on Palantir technology.

Dr Rhiannon Mihranian Osborne, who wants the contract scrapped, said healthcare staff understood the importance of privacy and ethics in patient care and were “horrified” by Palantir’s role in the programme because it “could seriously damage trust in our health system”.

She called on hospitals not to adopt Palantir software and said NHS bodies should “put the interests of patients and workers above American big tech corporations”.

Dr Osborne also claimed the rollout was “not going to plan”, saying NHS analysts had told campaigners the software offered “nothing special”, that implementation costs were rising and that the drive to adopt it risked displacing local systems that were already trusted and in use.

The dispute has drawn in international human rights groups as well as NHS campaigners.

Matt Mahmoudi, an adviser on artificial intelligence and human rights at Amnesty International, said Palantir had a record of “flagrantly disregarding international law and standards”, pointing to concerns about the company’s work with US immigration authorities and its supply of AI products and services to the Israeli military and intelligence agencies.

He said Amnesty had asked public institutions to reconsider working with the company.

Palantir rejected the criticism and said its role within the NHS was tightly controlled.

In a statement, the company said its software was “playing an important role in improving patient care”, helping to deliver 100,000 additional operations, a 12% reduction in discharge delays and the removal of 675,000 patients from waiting lists.

The firm said it could only process data under the NHS’s instructions and that it had “no intention of and no means of using the data” in the way described by critics. Any such use, it said, would be illegal and a breach of contract.

NHS England also defended the programme, describing it as part of a broader effort to modernise the health service and make better use of data.

A spokesperson said the platform was “delivering huge benefits for patients and the NHS”, including joining up care, speeding up cancer diagnosis and ensuring thousands of additional patients could be treated each month.

The spokesperson said Palantir had been appointed in line with public contract regulations and must operate only under the instruction of the NHS, with all access to data remaining under NHS control and strict contractual obligations protecting confidentiality.

NHS England says the FDP is primarily an operational platform rather than a new central medical record. Its published material states that the core national programme is focused on hospital and service management data rather than GP records, although local uses can vary.

Official NHS figures published last month said 110 hospital trusts and 41 integrated care boards were live on the platform by the end of January, with 79 trusts reporting measurable benefits. A further 167 hospital trusts had signed memorandums of understanding to join.

Even so, the contract has remained controversial since it was awarded. Palantir first developed a foothold in the NHS during the COVID-19 pandemic, when its Foundry software was used in the NHS COVID-19 Data Store. Since then, campaigners, patient privacy groups and some healthcare professionals have raised concerns about the company’s background in intelligence, defence and law enforcement work.

Opposition has also hardened within parts of the medical profession. The British Medical Association voted in 2025 to oppose further rollout of the Federated Data Platform and to seek an end to existing NHS contracts with Palantir.

Protests against the deal have been held outside NHS England’s headquarters and Palantir’s London offices since 2023, with demonstrators arguing that the company’s work in other sectors and countries makes it an unsuitable partner for the health service.

At the heart of the row is a broader argument over whether the safeguards written into the contract are enough to settle concerns about trust. Critics say the identity and wider conduct of the supplier matter just as much as the legal limits on data use. NHS England and Palantir say the platform should be judged on whether it helps hospitals run more effectively and improves care for patients.

For now, the disagreement looks set to intensify as more NHS organisations decide whether to adopt the system under a programme that ministers and health officials say is central to modernising the service.