NHS staff are staging what amounts to a quiet rebellion against Palantir's Federated Data Platform. According to reporting from the Financial Times, health officials and data analysts have been refusing to engage with the Federated Data Platform. When pressured, some work at a crawl. Others find reasons to stay away. The resistance stems from Palantir's work with the U.S. defense sector and concerns about the political affiliations of its leadership. What started as grumbling has hardened into organized workplace resistance against a £330 million government contract.
The contract itself was controversial from the start. Palantir built the NHS COVID-19 Data Store during the pandemic on a pro bono basis, which gave them a technical foothold and created dependencies that made switching providers difficult. When NHS England awarded the FDP contract in 2023, it used a procurement framework that allowed for a direct award without a full open tender. Critics argued that open-source alternatives like OpenSAFELY were never given a fair shot. Louis Mosley, Palantir's UK executive vice-chair, has dismissed the opposition as "ideologically motivated" and warned it could harm patient care.
The irony is that by most project metrics, FDP is succeeding. 123 of 205 hospital trusts in England are using it, and it has received high ratings for on-time and on-budget delivery. But technical success doesn't solve the trust problem. Ministers have reportedly sought advice on triggering a contract break clause, and MPs and medical unions are pressuring the government to remove Palantir from NHS systems entirely. For anyone building data platforms in healthcare, the lesson is simple. You can win the contract and still lose the people who have to use your product.