"Unhelpful": The Professional Body That Scrutinised the NHS's Biggest Data Contract — and Didn't Survive
In April 2023, the Faculty of Clinical Informatics published a position paper on NHS England’s planned Federated Data Platform. It was measured, evidence-based, and constructive. It did not oppose the FDP. It asked questions about procurement transparency, vendor lock-in, independent oversight, and whether the public had been adequately informed about how their health data would be used.
According to Jon Hoeksma in Digital Health News, NHS England's response was to tell the FCI the paper was 'unhelpful.
I was a former vice-chair of the FCI, having stood down at the end of 2022. I was not involved in writing it or in the exchanges with NHSE that followed. However, Hoeksma wrote that “some FCI members even believe that publication of the paper contributed to the FCI subsequently losing a previously promised NHSE grant.”
The Charity Commission’s financial records of FCI funding are stark. Government grants ran at £165,000 per year in 2020 and 2021, rising to £467,000 in 2022. In 2023 — the year the paper was published — grant income fell to zero. The merger of NHS Digital into NHSE may have affected many funding commitments during this period, and there may be other explanations. But the timeline is what it is. By July 2023, a founding fellow was warning of insolvency. By February 2024, members had voted to close the Faculty down. The professional body best placed to provide independent clinical informatics scrutiny of the biggest NHS data contract in history was gone.
The contract went to Palantir. And now, in early 2026, it sits at the centre of a lobbying scandal reaching into Downing Street.
What the paper asked
The position paper placed the FDP in the context of Care.data, the paused GPDPR, and the long history of public distrust in centralised NHS data initiatives. It noted BMA concerns about single-supplier lock-in, referenced citizen juries that wanted transparency and independent oversight, and highlighted that patients supported data sharing in principle but wanted to know how their data would be used and kept safe.
Among its questions: why had NHSE not adopted an open procurement approach? How would they prevent single-supplier lock-in? What independent oversight would be in place? How would the procurement align with the Goldacre Review’s recommendations?
These were not radical questions. They were the minimum scrutiny any competent professional body should provide. The FCI was not alone. At Digital Health Rewired in March 2023, GP and clinical informatics consultant Marcus Baw argued that NHSE had provided little clarity on how the system would work or why it was needed, and championed existing open-source alternatives. In September 2023, Professor Joe McDonald — a fellow of the FCI and one of the most respected voices in clinical informatics — compared the FDP to the BAC TSR-2, the 1960s fighter plane that became too expensive to cancel but impossible to justify.
How Palantir got the contract
To understand why the FDP contract is controversial, you have to understand the infrastructure of influence Palantir built in the years that preceded it.
As Byline Times has documented, Peter Mandelson’s firm Global Counsel was hired by Palantir in 2018. That same year, Global Counsel brought former Health Minister Nicola Blackwood on board for “political risk analysis.” In September 2019, Matthew Swindells, former Deputy Chief Executive of NHS England, joined Global Counsel and immediately began advising Palantir on NHS contracts. He went on to chair Palantir’s health advisory board while simultaneously chairing four NHS hospital trusts, including the first to pilot Palantir’s technology.
Meanwhile, as the Bureau of Investigative Journalism revealed, Palantir had been courting senior NHS leaders directly since mid-2019. In July 2019, Palantir’s UK boss Louis Mosley hosted the chair of NHS England for dinner — who emailed the next day to thank him for “the watermelon cocktails” and encouraged him to get in touch about structuring NHS data.
When COVID hit, Palantir offered its Foundry platform to the NHS for £1. That contract was extended to £1 million, then to a £23.5 million deal — without competitive tender. By the time the FDP was formally procured, Palantir had accumulated £60 million in NHS contracts without ever competing against another supplier.
After the award
The FDP contract was awarded to Palantir in November 2023. When NHSE published the contract just before Christmas, 417 of its 586 pages were blanked out, including most of the section on protection of personal data. NHSE had continued negotiating with Palantir after awarding the contract — citing sections still “subject to commercial negotiation” as the reason for the redactions. The deal, originally announced at £330 million, is now described as a potential £500 million contract.
After Labour took power in July 2024, Wes Streeting criticised trusts for “glacial” adoption while reporting suggested most hospitals had rejected the platform. In February 2025, Mandelson ,by then UK Ambassador, arranged a visit for Keir Starmer to Palantir’s Washington headquarters. No minutes were taken. Palantir now holds at least 34 UK government contracts worth over £670 million. Streeting remains the minister responsible for the NHS contract.
Today, he released WhatsApp messages exchanged with Mandelson between August 2024 and October 2025, showing the Health Secretary and Palantir’s lobbyist were in regular contact throughout the period he oversaw the contract. Streeting says he has “nothing to hide.”
The FCI’s position paper concluded: “NHSE should tell people what they are planning to do and then listen.” Since then, NHSE has published DPIAs and established governance groups including external advisory bodies with NDG, ICO and BMA representation. Some of the FCI’s questions have been addressed, at least on paper. But the core concerns — vendor lock-in, the procurement approach, and whether the public has been meaningfully informed — remain live. In January 2026, Bristol NHS Group issued a public statement on the FDP in response to the volume of public correspondence, noting it would no longer reply to messages on the subject individually. The people the FCI said should be told and listened to are now writing in. The contract comes up for review in 2027.
The FCI position paper was authored by Dr Alan Hassey and Dr Peter Short, with proofing by Dr John Williams and Dr Mark Bailey. It was published in April 2023. The Faculty of Clinical Informatics voted to close in February 2024. Members were not automatically transferred but were offered the option of joining the British Computer Society; some, including the author, did so. The Palantir FDP and COVID data contract covers NHS England only; health is devolved and the contract does not apply in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.
Views expressed are my own and do not represent my employer.
Hi Ann,
A great summary. As many know, I was the FCI Interim Chair of Council for the first half of 2023, and one of the editors of the FCI paper. We gave great consideration to every word in the FCI paper, and had several private meetings with NHSE people to get the insider view on the FCI paper. The paper was also reviewed and voted to pass for publication by the FCI Council. So a lot of people agreed with the FCI positional paper and the important questions it asked. I feel these important questions still stand today!
Regarding funding of the FCI by national government (eg NHSE) and this being affected by the publication of the FCI Positional paper, people argue both sides of the issue. My firm belief is that the FCI had not received any monies from government since the previous tax year (eg April 2021 - March 2022). The FCI was in continuous talks with NHSE for most of 2022 and 2023 tax year and then the 23-24 tax year. As far as I can see with all of the information I have in front of me (and it is a lot, but not 100% complete of course), it looks like NHSE was never going to provide any more funding to the FCI, starting April 2022! I remember in late 2022 and early 2023 the FCI top management (trustee board and council) emailing and meeting with senior NHSE officials to try and get funding, with no real promise of said funding. This is funding issue is naturally heavily clouded by the whole NHSD and HEE to NHSE merger.
> To me it looked like funding was a dead deed before the FCI Positional Paper was even published.
Whether the Paper was the final nail in the FCI coffin, I will leave that to others to comment on. But I think the FCI was too heavily reliant on central funding and when it was pulled, that was our downfall!
Mark
A really good piece Anne-Marie. A shameful episode in the history of NHS IT that we are still having to pay for. The position paper was really quite balanced but the people writing the cheques for FCI had zero tolerance for any criticism of the programme.
I don't think FCI did itself any favours in ramping up spending when the financial position was looking very uncertain, but axing FCI for daring to question FDP was a vindictive act that has unquestionably set back the cause of clinical informatics professionalism by years.