Campaigners across east London are calling on the NHS to tear up its £330million contract with the US data analytics firm Palantir, arguing the company should not be trusted with patients' records.
Critics say Palantir is unsuitable for handling sensitive patient data, pointing to the surveillance technology it has supplied to militaries and police forces. The company specialises in data integration, allowing clients to bring together information held in many different places.
The NHS awarded Palantir the contract to build a federated data platform which, the health service says, "connects vital health information across the NHS".
Dr Juliette Brown, a consultant psychiatrist, said ahead of a planned protest that the company's principles "run completely counter to the foundational" values of the NHS.
In July, Parliament's Health and Social Care Committee recommended that ministers use a break clause in February 2027 to exit the deal, citing concerns about data security and public trust.
On 9th September, activists gathered outside Whipps Cross Hospital during a meeting of Barts Health NHS Trust, hoping to add to the pressure on NHS England, which holds the contract.
The campaign has been building locally for more than a year. Five hundred staff and patients signed a petition last May, and since then 2,000 east Londoners have used an email tool run by the Good Law Project and Just Treatment, which has generated more than 80,000 emails calling on the NHS to drop the platform.
The next protest, "No Palantir in the NHS", is planned for 1st October at 5pm outside the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel.
