Dave Bell reports on Lambeth Keep Our NHS Public’s activities campaigning against Palantir’s Federated Data Platform
Lambeth Keep Our NHS Public has been campaigning alongside Kings4Palestine since Spring 2026. The goal has been to raise awareness amongst the public and staff at King’s College Hospital (KCH) and Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospitals (GSTT) about Palantir’s £300 million contract with NHS England. This contract was granted to Palantir by the NHS for tech company’s Federated Data Platform (FDP), which helps organise patient data.
Last Wednesday, Kings4Palestine, with Lambeth KONP members in support, presented a petition of over 1700 signatures to the board of King’s and the Annual Public Meeting of Guy’s and St Thomas’. The petition asked both Trusts not to provide data to the Federated Data Platform and requested that they write to NHS England and key decision-makers in government to urge them to terminate the involvement of Palantir in the NHS entirely. The petition was signed by nurses, porters, doctors, occupational therapists, healthcare assistants and many other NHS workers, as well as NHS patients at the two South London trusts.
Kings4Palestine is made up of staff and patients from KCH in Camberwell as well as other campaigning groups, such as our Lambeth KONP branch and Lambeth and Southwark Palestine Solidarity Campaign. These groups are outraged that Palantir, with its history of specialising in artificial intelligence technologies and software commonly used in surveillance, border enforcement, policing and warfare, is potentially being given access to personal health data of millions of UK citizens held by the NHS through the Federated Data Platform.
Palantir is a company accused of contributing to serious human rights violations in occupied Gaza, and has been described as the corporate backbone of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) in the USA which targets migrants, often using data gleaned from health records. Palantir’s founder, Peter Thiel, does not even believe in a publicly provided health service and has openly criticised state-backed healthcare systems like our own National Health Service.
Our campaign has involved leafleting outside the three hospital sites, speaking to health unions (Unite, Unison and the BMA), and writing directly to the Chief Executives of both Trusts to demand that they not only refuse to use Palantir and the FDP, but also that they press NHS England not to renew the current contract with Palantir, which has a break clause imminent.
The petitions handed in at the meetings earlier this month proved the groundswell of anger in South London at the awarding of the FDP contract to Palantir. See a video of us handing in our petition below!
The response from Guy’s and St Thomas’ was non-committal, as has been the response from the South East London Integrated Care Board, though they told us they are not currently using the FDP, and that their own electronic patient data systems (Epic) do most of the things that the FDP can do. When the petition was presented to the Chair of King’s Board, however, he replied that King’s are not using the system run by Palantir, nor do they have any intention to do so. He echoed the above position that the current data systems are working well enough for the Trust. He encouraged Kings4Palestine and KONP to continue to put our concerns to NHS England.
Whilst this is a limited success, it was a positive response and shows that the campaigns are having an effect in raising awareness and highlighting the horrors of dealing with such a dangerous company as Palantir. We will continue to put pressure on NHS England not to continue the FDP contract when the opportunity comes in the next few months, and we are building towards joining the national (and international) day of action against Palantir on 1st October.
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