NHS Federated Data Platform

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Thursday 16th April 2026 Westminster Hall

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Siobhain. I thank the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) for securing this excellent debate today. I agree with every word that has been spoken about this US spy tech company, which is now deep into our NHS data and our constituents’ patient data. We have got to take the example of the Swiss Government, who withdrew Palantir’s access to their data because of the risks of US intelligence gaining access to sensitive data, the potential loss of national sovereignty and the dependence on foreign specialists.

As has been mentioned, we know that Palantir has been used in the US to power up the ICE teams in targeting their actions. I fear what a future Government could do with this data. While I am sure that this Government would not even consider such measures, a future Reform UK Government might use it to target vulnerable people. We know that there are already significant health inequalities in our health system. We can just imagine minoritised groups not sharing vital health information with clinicians for fear of what may happen in the future. That would widen health inequalities and put those individual patients at risk. As a former clinician in the NHS, I know that trust is key. If a clinician does not have the confidence and trust of their patients, that will result in worse health outcomes. In the interests of our constituents’ health, I urge the Government to end this contract.

I note that the former Secretary of State for Health who signed the contract, the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay), has not turned up to this debate to defend his record. That says everything about the lack of accountability on the signing of these contracts. Palantir has eight major footprints across Departments and public services, to the tune of more than £800 million. Palantir is not the only company. Other clients of Global Counsel, such as with the pharma deals, have signed deals and are unaccountable to this House. It comes back to this question: how do we hold the Government to account for the contracts they sign? Often it feels like we are negotiating on legislation, but not on the big decisions, such as the signing of major financial contracts in the NHS.

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[Dr Ahmed]

If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I think I will answer his point shortly; in the interests of time, we have to be careful about interventions.

We live in a fast-paced technological world, and that means that we always look to the next possible provider to provide value for money, so it is right that there are break clauses in the contract to allow evaluations to take place. I can reassure all hon. Members that, as a clinician and a Minister, my north star is always patient safety and quality, and of course value for money. If, at the point of the break clause, we evaluate and find that there are other providers that can do the job better, then of course that needs to be looked at and reflected upon. More generally, as the Minister for Health Innovation, Patient Safety and Life Sciences, I would not be doing my job properly if I did not try to champion British business at every opportunity or to champion British small and medium-sized enterprises to become British plcs. I hope hon. Members will take that as read.

The contract has extension provisions and will be reviewed in line with standard contract management processes. We will decide later this year whether to extend it. NHS England will be transparent about the process and the evidence used, as we have been throughout our regular performance reviews for this contract and the FDP.

On digital sovereignty, our priority is to give patients the care they need. As Members will no doubt understand, for some essential IT services, it is simply not possible to develop in-house solutions, as we seek the best from the market. I reflect on my own practice in Glasgow, in the Queen Elizabeth university hospital, which the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East seems to think has found a panacea of publicly delivered technology. I can tell him that when I walk into that hospital, I login through Microsoft Windows. Then I open a programme built by a North American tech company to order test results. Then I open another programme built by a North American tech company to look at the results of those tests. Finally, if I want to check X-rays, I open a fourth programme built by a North American technology company to evaluate CT scans, MRI scans and X-rays.

[Rachael Maskell]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Dr Ahmed]

In the interests of time, I will continue. I apologise to my hon. Friend.

In the future, our goal is to see a vibrant UK market in digital and technology, which would give the NHS more choices and help to improve standards. Of course, I would be unashamedly pro-British about my ambitions for that mix, because that is the way that we not only serve our NHS but also support economic growth. At the moment, what matters is who controls the data and how that is governed. I appreciate the sensitivities around that, I really do. Rightly for the FDP, this is a matter for the NHS and UK regulators.

I have also been asked about vendor lock-in and whether it is possible to remove companies like Palantir from the NHS. The answer is unequivocally yes, it is possible. Of course, it would take time and planning to safely transition from one supplier to another, as it always does in the NHS, when patient safety is the primary concern. At the moment, there are unfortunately only a small number of companies that can do what we genuinely need them to do at the scale that we need them to do it, but the contract has multiple measures built in to allow greater freedom of choice. That includes making sure that the NHS owns the intellectual property for all products and that it is possible to migrate them to other providers.

Data security is also at the heart of our health innovation programme. Protecting personal data is at the heart of the FDP and the health innovation strategy. Most importantly, we have separated church and state, in terms of service provision and data security. A separate company, IQVIA, provides the highest standard of privacy-enhancing technology for that data in the FDP, which means that we can remove personal identifiers from the data where they are not required, ensuring that privacy is maintained throughout. NHS England and NHS organisations retain full control as data controllers, including over decisions about how data is used, who can access it and which products are deployed. Palantir does not own the data, the products or the intellectual property, nor can it use the NHS data for its own purposes.

The FDP is a secure data environment. Security is built into its design and operation, and it has been through national, technical and cyber-assurance, with external oversight. It should also be understood that the FDP is only for health and care purposes; it cannot be legally used for non-health purposes such as immigration enforcement, as has been promulgated.

As Members will expect, my position on the owners and executives of Palantir is very much the same as that of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State—we are no fan of their politics. However, the FDP, and the principles that underpin it, are critical to the future of the NHS. Palantir operates strictly within a UK-regulated contract where the NHS controls all data, access is tightly governed and information can be used only for agreed purposes that benefit patients. I would expect any member of staff who did not in all conscience feel that they could work with Palantir to raise that with their employer.

[Rachael Maskell]

I raised the issue of patient trust. We know that over 50% of the public do not have confidence in this system, so they might not share vital health information with their clinicians. As a result, will the Minister include that point in the consultation? He has only 10 months until this first period ends, so can he say more about the public perspective on the Government consultation?

[Dr Ahmed]

My hon. Friend will know that no NHS system or pathway can ever work without the confidence of the public, and that needs to be reflected in any evaluations that take place. I have heard my hon. Friend’s concerns loud and clear, as well as those of Members across the House. It is right that we look to maintain the highest standards for our NHS. It is also true that the FDP has a role to play in delivering for the NHS and helping people get the care they need more quickly and efficiently. Those are real outcomes that will improve people’s lives, all through the better use of data.

Members on both sides of the House often rightly challenge me to go further, faster on rare diseases, rare tumours and rare cancers. None of that is possible in modern medicine without data, and the analysis of data. Just as I have a responsibility to ensure that we get value for money out of all contracts in the national health service, and that we evaluate them regularly, Members also have a responsibility to be careful not to aggregate different components of the NHS and present them as a monolithic technological solution.

The FDP is, and will continue to be, an important component of delivering patient care in the NHS in England. Of course, who contracts with the FDP will be open to question as we go forward and think about future contractual arrangements. It would be disingenuous to suggest that the FDP is somehow the only technological solution or database in the NHS; there are many others that do good work—whether that is the single patient record, the health data research service, the NHS app or clinical systems for NHS primary care providers. We must be careful not to conflate one technology with the next, and in doing so, alarm citizens and patients about what is happening with their data.

I can assure Members across the House that in my ministerial service—just as in my 20 years of clinical service—my north star is transparency, patient safety, quality and providing the best care to all patients up and down the country.