The Guardian has found that more than two dozen hospital trusts named by NHS England as benefiting from Palantir’s medical data platform say they are either not using the system or are using only a small part of it.
NHS England’s public list describes 29 trusts as “realising benefits” from the £330m federated data platform (FDP), an AI-capable system developed by US software firm Palantir. However, those trusts told the Guardian the FDP is not live at their organisations or that they are not using any of its applications.
A senior health official who reviewed the disparity described the gap between the NHS’s public claim and the trusts’ comments as “very misleading”. The apparent mismatch raises fresh questions about how the rollout and reported impact of the FDP are being represented publicly.
The Palantir platform has been controversial since its procurement, and the disclosures amplify scrutiny over transparency, deployment and the extent to which AI-driven tools are actually embedded in clinical and operational practice. It is not clear from the trusts’ responses whether and when they plan to make fuller use of the system, or what metrics NHS England used to determine the trusts were “realising benefits”.
The findings underscore a wider debate about how large-scale technology investments in healthcare are communicated to the public and monitored for delivery and effectiveness. With millions invested, the gap between official claims and local trust experience may prompt further requests for clarity from oversight bodies and from Parliament.