The British government has put its most contentious health-tech contract on notice. It is now formally reviewing the NHS’s £330mn deal with Palantir, and weighing whether to walk away in 2027.
Technology minister Liz Kendall confirmed the review this week, telling Times Radio that “the current health secretary is reviewing every single aspect of that contract to make sure we get the right deal for Britain,” according to Reuters. The question on the table is whether to trigger a break clause at the end of the deal’s initial term in 2027.
Palantir won the contract in November 2023, under the previous Conservative government, to build the NHS Federated Data Platform, a system meant to connect patient data across NHS England and support clinical decisions. It has been contested almost ever since, over how it was awarded, how patient data is handled, and how much of the country’s health infrastructure now rests on a single American supplier.
The review follows a Science, Innovation and Technology Committee report that singled out Palantir’s growing presence in the UK public sector as “an unacceptable point of weakness” and urged ministers to consider the break clause. MPs have pointed to data-security concerns and to Palantir’s work on US defence and immigration enforcement as reasons to reduce the NHS’s dependence on it.
