Patient data from five GP surgeries in England is now being fed into the NHS's Palantir-built data platform, extending the US software firm's footprint beyond its original remit of hospital operations and into local practices.

NHS Cheshire and Merseyside, one of England's largest Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) — the statutory bodies that plan and commission NHS services for their local areas — is overseeing the move onto Palantir's Federated Data Platform (FDP). An internal NHS note seen by the Financial Times described the development as a "significant milestone".

The FDP is software used predominantly in hospital trusts and is designed to untangle NHS datasets and clear hospital backlogs. City AM revealed in August that a single product within Palantir's FDP had cut discharge delay days by up to 28 per cent. Palantir said it was "proud" its software was "helping to improve patient care nationally".

Under the Cheshire and Merseyside pilot, data from five GP practices will be used to help the ICB understand and manage the health needs of its patient population — a step beyond the hospital activity data the platform was originally built around, since GP records follow patients through years of routine primary care. Patient data is pseudonymised through a third party before entering the system, a process that strips out identifying details so records cannot be directly traced back to individuals, although it remains unclear whether patients consent before their records are shared.

An NHS spokesperson said ICBs can access GP "where they have data-sharing agreements in place". Around 35 ICBs in England are now signed up to the FDP, though not all use it to collect patient data for population health management. How the consent question is resolved, and whether more of those ICBs begin feeding GP data into the system, are the details to watch next.

The pilot also appears to mark a shift from assurances given by the former Conservative government in 2023, when ministers told parliament that "GP data will not be part of the national platform".

FDP contract faces political and public backlash

Palantir won NHS England's £330m FDP contract in 2023. The deal has since drawn sustained criticism over the company's ties to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the American military, alongside fears of vendor lock-in and a notorious 'land-and-expand' business model, in which it strikes small deals before expanding its reach across industries.

In August, the government increased the projected whole-life cost of the FDP to £1.1bn, while cutting forecast benefits to £808m — a combined swing of £1.7bn from the figures given a year earlier.

Health innovation minister James Frith said in August that he was worried about the effect the contract "could have on people's willingness to share data with the NHS". Some 60,000 people opted out of sharing their data via the national data opt-out — the service that lets patients in England withhold their confidential data from uses beyond their own care — between mid-May and mid-July.

Palantir said: "our role is to provide software. How that software is used is entirely under the control of the NHS with data only able to be processed in accordance with their strict instructions".

Source: City AM