UK Committee Urges End to Palantir’s £330 Million NHS Deal Over Reliance Risks
Updated
Updated · Reuters · Jun 2
UK Committee Urges End to Palantir’s £330 Million NHS Deal Over Reliance Risks
3 articles · Updated · Reuters · Jun 2
Summary
A parliamentary committee said Britain’s dependence on Palantir is an “unacceptable point of weakness” and urged the government to use a break clause to exit the NHS data contract.
The 7-year deal, awarded in 2023, is meant to unify NHS data for clinical decision-making, but lawmakers warned it risks vendor lock-in and exposure to decisions made outside Britain.
The 70-page report said Palantir’s work with U.S. military and immigration agencies, along with co-founder Peter Thiel’s politics, showed a mismatch with UK values and possible risks to sensitive information.
Palantir UK chief Louis Mosley said the contract is delivering and was won through an open tender, while campaign group Foxglove backed the committee and called for the deal to be scrapped.
More broadly, the committee said the government lacks a coherent digital strategy and called its goal of saving £45 billion a year through public-service digitization “worryingly optimistic.”