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What's happening with the NHS Federated Data Platform?

Health policy is devolved. The following information applies to England.

In November 2023, NHS England awarded a contract to provide a Federated Data Platform (FDP) in the NHS to a supplier consortium led by Palantir Technologies UK Limited, with support from Accenture, PwC, NECS and Carnall Farrar. The FDP allows NHS organisations to more easily connect data held in different places and formats, for example, to schedule appointments or assess demand for services.

NHS England committed to the supplier for an initial three years through a contract that began in March 2024, with options to extend it at specified intervals up to a total of 7 years. The option of not extending the contract after the initial three-year period, in March 2027, is often called 'the break clause’.

In oral evidence to the Health and Social Care Committee in June 2026, NHS England's Chief Data Officer, Ayub Bhayat, said they would have to inform the supplier by December 2026 if they were not extending the contract, but that they intended to inform the supplier of the decision before December 2026.

The government has received significant pressure from campaign groups and MPs to not extend the contract in March 2027, and two select committees have recommended the government does not extend the contract. The government has said it will review the contract in line with its standard contract management processes and announce the outcome “in the normal way in due course”.

Some stakeholders have raised concerns about:

• the fairness of how the FDP was procured
• whether Palantir's corporate activities and values align with those of the NHS
• vendor lock-in (when it is difficult to switch to another technology or supplier)
• compatibility with local NHS systems
• the strength of the evidence of the FDP’s benefits
• implications for public trust in how the NHS uses its data

Others, including NHS England and Palantir, maintain that the FDP was awarded through a competitive procurement process, includes safeguards against vendor lock-in, and is improving NHS service delivery and operations.

What is the NHS Federated Data Platform?

NHS organisations often store different sets of health data in different places and formats, making it difficult for datasets to "talk" to each other. For example, when scheduling a patient’s hospital surgery, a healthcare professional may need to access multiple IT systems in the hospital to find information on what the patient needs and what operating theatres are available.

There is no central NHS database for storing sets of health data, such as patient records, and data sharing practices vary across the country without consistency in what data is held where and why. This means different NHS organisations may store the same information in different systems and formats, such as electronic patient record systems. This can make data sharing between organisations more difficult (such as when healthcare professionals in different hospitals might need to share a patient’s records to provide care, or when an NHS trust might need to share data with an Integrated Care Board (ICB) or NHS England to support healthcare planning).

The NHS Federated Data Platform (FDP) aims to:

• connect data stored in different places
• make it easier for data to be shared within and between NHS organisations
• support data analysis to improve healthcare planning and delivery

The FDP is an overlay that sits above an organisation’s existing datasets and provides a unified view, without copying all data into a single central database, making it easier for different datasets to "talk" to each other. Each participating NHS trust and ICB has its own version of the FDP (or “instance”) for which it is the data controller, and NHS England runs a national instance. The FDP instances may be used in different ways:

• NHS trusts may use the FDP to more easily look between and analyse different datasets to support patient care, manage waiting lists, schedule operations and plan services.
• ICBs, responsible for commissioning healthcare services for their local area, may use the FDP to analyse datasets and plan for population needs, including identifying local health inequalities.
• NHS England may use the FDP to access and analyse up-to-date data for national planning. Information that personally identifies a person (such as their name or NHS number) is removed when local NHS organisations share data nationally with NHS England.

What has the government said about the expected benefits of the Federated Data Platform?

The government has said the FDP is expected to support NHS priorities of:

• recovering elective care, such as by reducing waiting lists
• vaccination and immunisation programmes
• proactive planning of NHS services
• better joined-up care between services
• managing critical supplies, such as medicine and equipment

It says the expected benefits of NHS trusts and ICBs using the FDP include:

• faster identification and treatment of patients on waiting lists
• better use of hospital capacity, such as improving theatre scheduling and bed management
• more timely discharges by coordinating patient flow across services
• tools to support planning and population health management
• improved planning through a clearer, system-wide view of demand and capacity
• reduced duplication of data collection and manual reporting

How widely is the Federated Data Platform used across the NHS?

NHS England publishes data on the uptake of the FDP. As of August 2026:

• 142 of 202 NHS acute, mental health, community and ambulance trusts (70%) were in live operational use on the FDP and 170 (84%) had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to join the FDP.
• 35 of 36 ICBs had signed an MOU and were in live operational use on the FDP.

The rollout of the Federated Data Platform

The FDP began being rolled out to NHS trusts in April 2024, following a pilot phase which began in 2022.

In January 2025, NHS England told NHS organisations to connect their digital infrastructure to the FDP and set a target for 85% of secondary care trusts to adopt it by March 2026.

NHS England's Medium Term Planning Framework, published in October 2025, stated that all NHS providers should be onboarded to the FDP by 2028/29 and use its core products to support reducing waiting times, cancer services, urgent and emergency care. It also said ICBs should use FDP tools to manage the performance of NHS organisations and for population health management.

In June 2026, NHS England's Chief Data Officer, Ayub Bhayat, told the Health and Social Care Committee that NHS England had since clarified to NHS organisations that using the FDP was not mandatory.

In February 2026 NHS England awarded a contract to Imperial College Projects to independently evaluate the FDP. The evaluation is expected to be published after a decision has been taken about whether to extend the FDP contract.

The National Audit Office is also examining how the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) and the NHS are working to integrate patient data onto a single organisational system, including through the FDP, and is expected to report in winter 2026/27.

Stakeholder commentary on the Federated Data Platform

Concerns about the fairness of the Federated Data Platform procurement

During the covid-19 pandemic, Palantir provided software to the NHS for free to support data analysis and decision-making. It was subsequently awarded NHS contracts worth £908,000 in June 2020, £23.5 million in December 2020 and £11.5 million in August 2022.

Some stakeholders, including the campaign group Medcat and some MPs, have argued that Palantir's role during the pandemic gave it an advantage in the procurement process for the FDP.

The National Audit Office has reported that in February 2023, the Government Chief Commercial Officer wrote to Palantir (PDF) noting concerns that if suppliers offered services at low or zero cost to establish a foothold in public sector contracts, it could undermine open competition.

In July 2025, Louis Mosley, Head of Palantir UK and Europe, told the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee (which has since been renamed as the Science and Technology Committee) that the company had provided the software for a token £1 because the pandemic was a national emergency, not because it sought to gain an advantage over competitors for future contracts, such as for the FDP.

NHS England has said the FDP contract was awarded through “a rigorous, competitive procurement process in line with government procurement legislation” with any eligible supplier able to apply.

There have also been press reports raising concerns about links between senior DHSC officials and Palantir and whether these affected the fairness of the procurement process. In response, then health minister Preet Kaur Gill told the Health and Social Care Select Committee in June 2026 that none of the individuals cited in the press reports had been involved in decisions on awarding the FDP contract.

Concerns about vendor lock-in

In its June 2026 report on Rewiring the state, the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee warned that Palantir’s role in healthcare was an “unacceptable point of weakness” and raised risks of vendor lock-in and supplier dependency.

Vendor lock-in occurs when it is difficult to switch to another technology or supplier, for example, because it is expensive to exit a contract or it is too technically complex to switch systems.

NHS England has said the FDP avoids vendor lock-in through:

• a maximum seven-year contract term that is only committed to in increments
• planning for how contracts can be ended
• developing in house data engineering and analytical skills
• partnering with other organisations to develop services for the FDP
• using standards and technical guidelines that can be moved to another service or provider

The committee also argued that reliance on overseas technology providers could create vulnerabilities and undermine digital sovereignty.

Debate about Palantir’s compatibility with UK values

Some stakeholders, campaign groups and MPs have argued that there is a “mismatch” between Palantir and UK values.  The House of Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee’s report on Rewiring the state said this was because of Palantir’s role in supplying software for the US Government’s military and immigration services, “supporting highly controversial policies and activities”. The report said the mismatch in values was also because the co-founder of Palantir, Peter Thiel, “has criticised the concept of a national health service and the company has issued a manifesto that makes explicitly political arguments”.

The committee said its findings were not ideologically motivated or driven by concern about the quality of Palantir’s products. However, the Financial Times reported that Louis Mosley, head of Palantir’s business UK and Europe, accusing the committee of “putting the politics of the playground before public services” and ignoring evidence that the company’s technology was delivering benefits to the NHS.

In evidence to the committee in July 2025, Mr Mosley said Palantir existed “to support democratically-elected governments in delivering the mandate that they have been elected to deliver” and did not take political views.

Compatibility with local systems and existing capabilities

Some stakeholders have questioned whether the FDP meets the needs of local health systems or adds value to ICBs that already have similar technological capabilities.

In December 2025, the NHS Confederation (now part of NHS Alliance) reported concerns from local systems and leaders that adopting FDP tools could reduce the functionality of existing local systems, at least until they had been developed further. It also raised concerns about interoperability with existing tools, and said the FDP would be more beneficial if it was more responsive to local needs, transparent in its governance and adaptable in its technical design.

In February 2025, the Chief Data and Analytical Officers Network, and the Association of Professional Healthcare Analysts wrote an open letter to NHS England. The letter said that while they supported the FDP's aims, many ICBs already used similar tools that exceeded the FDP's capabilities. It argued that NHS England should recognise existing local infrastructure and how it would operate alongside the FDP.

In response to the Chief Data and Analytical Officer Network's arguments, the Health Innovation Minister told the Health and Social Care Committee in August 2026 that the FDP had functionalities to support patient care that local ICB systems didn’t, such as recommending patients for discharge. He also said scaling local ICB’s infrastructure nationally or using it as a solution across England was “unproven” as it was developed for local needs.

In oral evidence to the House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee in June 2026, the Nuffield Trust and the Chief Data and Analytical Officer Network said the FDPs benefits were likely to vary and organisations with less developed digital capabilities may benefit more than those with existing similar digital capabilities to the FDP. Experts also told the committee that it is difficult to measure the FDP's impact because it is not possible to know what outcomes would have been achieved without it and it was difficult to measure if the FDP has directly caused benefits, such as a reduction in patient waiting lists.

Communicating the performance of the Federated Data Platform

NHS England publishes statistics about the FDP’s performance through its NHS Federated Data Platform uptake and benefits webpage. In June 2026, it added a caveat stating that it could not conclude that the FDP had directly caused observed benefits because other factors had not been controlled for, and it published more detail about its methodology. NHS England said these changes were prompted in part by freedom of information requests about how FDP data was analysed.

In July 2026, the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR), the independent regulator of official statistics, said it had reviewed public and press concerns about how NHS England communicated FDP performance data. The OSR said it welcomed the additional caveats and NHS England’s efforts to strengthen messaging around FDP performance data, but that many people had read it as a significant change in how NHS England was communicating FDP benefits. The OSR also examined concerns that criticism of the FDP may have been discouraged within NHS England, but it said it had been assured of the independence of NHS England statisticians. It said it would continue to monitor the clarity and accuracy of how figures relating to the FDP's performance are communicated by ministers and in official publications.

Concerns about who can access patient data in the Federated Data Platform

Press coverage in May 2026 reported some Palantir staff and other contractors had access to identifiable patient data within part of the FDP. In response, in June 2026, the National Data Guardian, Nicola Byrne, sought clarification from NHS England, noting that NHS England had previously said only NHS staff with a legitimate need could access identifiable patient information. NHS England then said it had incorrectly communicated who required access, and explained a specified number of supplier staff needed limited access to this data to be able to do their job.

An academic has noted that it is not unusual for large American companies to be involved in NHS data systems, including storage of data on cloud platforms provided by US companies, and that the relevant question was how trustworthy individual companies are.

Concerns about public trust and sharing data for research and planning

The NHS collects confidential patient information nationally from all NHS organisations, which can be shared with researchers and organisations to help develop new treatments or understand diseases better. Patients can opt out of this use through the National Data Opt-Out.

In October 2026, the National Data Guardian warned the government that recent increases in the National Data Opt-Out were “a concern”. Although she said it was not possible to prove a direct link, she noted the rise in opt-outs coincided with media coverage of the FDP and its suppliers. She warned that higher opt-out rates could make NHS data less complete and representative of the population, which could affect healthcare planning, research and innovation. While stating that she "strongly supports" the aims of the FDP and was not recommending a particular contractual outcome, she said “public and professional trust should be given substantial weight when evaluating any supplier of a system involving people’s health and care data.”

News articles subsequently stated that in response, the senior vice president of Palantir UK has said the National Data Guardian has been “captured by campaign groups that have zero interest in building trust and every interest in stoking fear”, and that her statement relied on little evidence.

Potential impacts on the provision of healthcare from not extending the Federated Data Platform contract

It is unclear from public information how deeply the FDP is embedded into NHS operational workflows or how not extending the contract when its initial term ends in March 2027 would affect healthcare delivery. The Chief Data and Analytical Officer Network told the Health and Social Care Committee in June 2026 that less digitally mature NHS trusts were at greater risk of vendor lock-in than trusts with existing capabilities similar to the FDP.

Then health minister Preet Kaur Gill told the Health and Social Care Committee in June 2026 that any end to the FDP “would cause disruption” that the government was currently analysing the extent of. She said there were provisions to reduce disruption, including the NHS owning intellectual property on tools that could be transferred to a new supplier (such as the NHS canonical data model that underpins the FDP).

On timing, the Nuffield Trust told the committee it would be “challenging” to procure, implement and transition to another system by March 2027, a view shared by some committee members. However, the Chief Data and Analytical Officer Network argued it was not too late, depending on what was procured. In August 2026, the Health Innovation Minister told the committee that while the government had not yet made a decision about whether to extend the FDP contract, normal procurement timelines made it unlikely a successor contract could be in place by March 2027.