Palantir Lobbied UK Minister to Extend NHS Data Platform to GP Records, Messages Show

The messages were obtained by Foxglove, a tech equity campaign group, and shared with The Guardian. They run from July 2025 to March 2026 and appear to be between Louis Mosley, head of Palantir's UK business, and Zubir Ahmed, then a health minister. The executive's name is redacted in the documents released by the Department of Health and Social Care, but Palantir did not deny it was Mosley, the newspaper reported.

The disclosure matters because Palantir's contract is up for review. Doctors' groups say adding GP data could damage patient trust. Earlier this month the Financial Times reported that ministers were unlikely to end the contract soon, despite calls from campaigners and two House of Commons committees to remove the company as early as spring. When Rishi Sunak's Conservative government announced the Palantir deal three years ago, it said GP data would not be part of the national platform.

In messages sent in February this year, Palantir argued that "the logic of joining up primary and secondary [care] data is unarguable" and called its software "ideal" for the job, according to The Guardian. The company told Ahmed that applying its Foundry software to GP data could bring "faster access to GPs", better-targeted management of frail patients and more effective preventive care, and said the platform would "maintain local control of data".

Palantir also anticipated the political fight. In the messages and a briefing document, it urged the minister to "get out ahead of" expected opposition from doctors and from critics including Green party leader Zack Polanski and Your Party, led by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana. "The FDP is already delivering very strong results – but will deliver even more benefits faster with the right ministerial sponsorship," the company wrote. It also acknowledged that the politics of using GP data was "not straightforward" because the previous government had ruled it out of scope.

In one exchange, the minister praised the executive's appearance on a BBC One Sunday politics programme: "Great work [on] Kuenssberg btw," Ahmed wrote.

Donald Campbell, Foxglove's director of advocacy, said the messages showed Palantir "lobbying to hoover up yet more of the British public's sensitive personal data" and that it was "telling" that the case had been made privately through privileged access to government. Tom Dolphin, chair of the British Medical Association council, warned of "scope creep" that could "undermine patient trust and threaten the doctor-patient relationship". Marc Farr, chair of the NHS Chief Data and Analytical Officers Network, said bringing GP data into the platform would go beyond what ministers and NHS leaders had said and would require legislative change.

Palantir said it had "long argued that data sharing can improve the NHS" and that it had "always been clear that it is for the government to decide how they roll the software out", adding that the exchanges reflected both points. The company says the platform has helped reduce surgery waiting times and discharge delays. The Department of Health and Social Care declined to comment.

Health Secretary Yvette Cooper told parliament last week that the review of the contract was ongoing, while pointing to "a huge long-term benefit to using the NHS to develop UK sovereign AI". The contract's next end point is in 2029. Bloomberg reported that Tom Watson, a Labour peer Palantir hired as a full-time lobbyist in September, has written to Cooper urging her to keep the contract running.