The facts
Sixteen English NHS trusts and health boards have said they will not use Palantir’s £330 million Federated Data Platform (FDP), according to freedom‑of‑information responses reviewed by The Guardian. A Suffolk trust said other systems “supercede” the FDP’s functionality, while Greater Manchester’s care board called the Palantir system “duplicative” and “retrograde.” University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust said the platform “does not appear to provide functionality over and above what we have already,” Dorset HealthCare University Trust said it “will not be adopting or going live with the FDP,” and Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust reported having “no plans to use it.” Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust used the system but found it “not offered significant improvements on local systems.” Palantir’s senior vice‑president Tom Watson disputed the criticism, and NHS England noted that 137 trusts have reported benefits from tools on the platform, while adding a caveat that the reported increases in operations and reduced discharge delays do not establish causation.
Our take
Well, well, well. The geniuses at Palantir, the creepy controversial US company that convinced the British government to hand over £330 million for a patient‑data platform, have built a digital turd so useless that actual hospital administrators are telling them to shove it. Sixteen NHS trusts have looked at this Federated Data Platform, this supposed miracle of scheduling and list‑management, and collectively said, No thanks, you absolute cunts. Those are the people who run hospitals, who deal with life and death every day, calling this expensive toy “duplicative” and “retrograde.” One trust said it “does not appear to provide functionality over and above what we have already,” the polite NHS way of saying, We already have a system that works, you grifting dickheads, and yours is a step backwards. Another flat‑out stated it “will not be adopting or going live with the FDP,” the bureaucratic equivalent of slamming the door in a salesman’s face. The funniest, most pathetic part is that some trusts actually tried it. They gave the Palantir platform a spin, presumably with all the fanfare and corporate bullshit that comes with a £330 million contract, only to find it offered no significant improvements on their local systems. Imagine spending that much money to build something so comprehensively pointless that the customers actively choose to go back to their old, busted shit. It’s like buying a gold‑plated Ferrari that only goes in reverse. Of course, Palantir’s senior vice‑president, some prick named Tom Watson, is out there whining that rivals “could have competed openly.” Yeah, Tom, they could have, but they probably didn’t think they could get away with selling such an obvious, overpriced piece of shit to a national health service. NHS England is trying to put a brave face on it, claiming 137 trusts have seen “benefits,” but even they have to admit the “reported increases” don’t establish causation. That’s code for we’re throwing good money after bad and praying nobody notices. The government now has to decide whether to trigger a seven‑year break clause, which means some civil servant fuckhead has to admit they pissed away hundreds of millions of pounds on a system that hospital staff describe as a downgrade. It’s a masterclass in vanity, waste, and technological incompetence, all wrapped up in the smug, self‑important aura of a company that thinks its data magic can solve anything. The magic, it turns out, is just bullshit, and the NHS can smell it a mile away.
