BMA calls for NHS to abandon Palantir platform over US ICE links

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By Daniel Pye

Doctors can “no longer provide the tacit endorsement” of using Palantir to manage patient data, the British Medical Association has said.

Writing in a BMJ rapid response piece, the British Medical Association UK council chair Dr Tom Dolphin said that NHS should move away from Palantir’s platform entirely because of its use by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The controversial agency, which has sparked protests in the US after the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, is using similar technology for its operations to what the NHS has commissioned from Palantir – the Federated Data Platform (FDP).

This platform connects health information across the NHS, helping staff work more efficiently and deliver better patient care.

Dr Dolphin cited a report from the Good Law Project that ICE is using formerly separate datasets, including medical records, through Palantir’s Immigration OS platform.

Given this, he wrote in January “it is the view of the BMA that doctors working in the NHS can no longer provide the tacit endorsement that using a product implies and must immediately take steps to explore refusing any non-direct care usage of Palantir’s [FDP], with a view to moving away from the platform entirely in time, when a suitable alternative can be put in place.”

Push for all trusts to use Palantir

Palantir signed a £330 million contract in 2023 to provide the FDP, and NHS England’s medium term planning framework states that all acute, community and mental health providers, trusts and ICBs should be using it by April.

Acute trusts leveraging the platform have achieved an average increase of 114 elective surgeries per month per trust, and a 35% reduction in delayed discharge days, the framework states.

According to NHS England’s records, as of October 150 hospital trusts had signed up, but less than a third (41) were on the platform.

One Integrated Care Board, Greater Manchester, is not on the platform.

In February 2025, Prime Minister Keir Starmer visited Palantir’s headquarters with the now disgraced former British Ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson.

In a debate on Mandelson on Wednesday 4 February, independent MP Jeremy Corbyn said: “That ghastly company Palantir was trying to get hold of our national health service, apparently at the behest of Mandelson and others.”

The Department of Health and Social Care and Palantir were approached for comment.

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