The NHS Region That Built Its Own Data Platform and Is Saying No to Palantir
Greater Manchester runs its own health data system and says it works better than the $400 million national deal. That claim is now shaping a decision the UK government must make by February.
Key points
- The UK government has until February 2026 to decide whether to trigger a break clause and end a deal worth more than $400 million between the NHS and US data company Palantir.
- 139 of roughly 200 NHS hospital trusts and 35 of England's 36 integrated care boards, the regional bodies that plan health services, are currently using Palantir's platform.
- Greater Manchester, covering around 3 million people, is the only care board to have categorically refused Palantir's system, preferring its own in-house platform.
- A bipartisan group of UK politicians warned in June 2025 that dependence on a single foreign vendor is an "unacceptable point of weakness."
- Palantir disputes claims that Greater Manchester's platform is superior and says thousands of NHS staff use its system and report clear benefits.
The NHS is sitting on a $400 million contract with an American data company, and one corner of England is making a loud argument that the country doesn't need it.
In 2023, the UK government commissioned Palantir, a US software firm best known for its work with defence and intelligence agencies, to build what it calls a Federated Data Platform, or FDP. The idea is to pull together the scattered tangle of NHS patient records, from hospital systems to local care notes, into one connected layer that clinicians and planners can actually use. NHS figures reported by Wired show the platform is already live across 139 of roughly 200 hospital trusts and 35 of England's 36 regional care boards.
So what is the actual argument against it?
Greater Manchester's care board says it already has something better. For nearly a decade, the region has built its own system called the Analytics and Data Science Platform, or ADSP. At a board meeting in May 2025, members concluded their local capability "exceeds anything the FDP currently offers" and is "two to three years" ahead in some functions.
Matt Hennessey, chief data and analytics officer at NHS Greater Manchester, puts it plainly: adopting Palantir's platform "would be a retrograde step." He also raises a point that goes beyond technical specs. A platform patients don't trust won't get the data it needs to work. Greater Manchester has spent years building that trust with its own tool.
Palantir pushes back hard. The company argues there is little independent evidence the ADSP has directly improved patient care or cut costs. Tom Bartlett, an independent IT consultant who previously oversaw the national FDP rollout, says the comparison is unfair because the two systems do different things. The FDP is built to connect the entire NHS, from individual hospitals to national bodies, and to provide a shared surface for AI tools developed in one region to be picked up and used in another. "You can lift and shift," Bartlett says. "That's the real power of the FDP."
What does this mean for the government's decision?
The government faces a specific deadline. A break clause in the Palantir contract comes up in February 2026. If the government does not act, the deal runs until 2031.
In June 2025, a cross-party group of MPs published a report calling Palantir's dominance an "unacceptable point of weakness" and urging ministers to activate that clause. A separate parliamentary committee made similar arguments the following month, citing Hennessey's testimony directly.
Supporters of the Palantir deal argue those calls are based on a narrow reading of Greater Manchester's experience and underestimate what the FDP does across the wider NHS.
Common questions
Does this affect patients directly?
Not immediately. The debate is about a contract decision, not a service being switched off. But the outcome will shape how NHS data is managed and shared for years, which can affect how quickly clinicians get the information they need to treat people.
Why does it matter who supplies the software?
Politicians on both sides of the debate worry about depending on a single foreign company for critical health infrastructure. If that company changes its terms, its pricing, or its priorities, the NHS has limited options. The Greater Manchester case is being used to argue a domestic alternative is possible.
