Palantir’s UK boss pressed former health minister Zubir Ahmed to consider extending the company’s NHS software into GP records, despite those records having been expressly excluded from its £330m contract, WhatsApp messages show.
The exchanges, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by campaign group Foxglove, cover July 2025 to March 2026. They concern Palantir’s contract to run NHS England’s federated data platform and reveal a push in February 2026 to bring primary care information within its reach.
In the correspondence, Louis Mosley argued for joining up information from primary and secondary care. The company described its Foundry platform as suitable for that work, while acknowledging that the existing contract’s exclusion of GP data presented a political obstacle.
The messages show lobbying for a change, not that GP records have been added to the platform. Any extension would require legislative change, NHS data leaders said. The distinction matters for patients whose information is held by their GP, including those using services across London.
A boundary set in 2023
When the federated data platform contract was announced in 2023, ministers said it would not include GP data. That assurance established a clear boundary around the information covered by the agreement, which is worth £330m.
GP records can contain sensitive information about a patient’s health, treatment and consultations over time. Primary care includes the services provided by general practice, while secondary care includes specialist and hospital services. Bringing information from those settings together would therefore go beyond the scope ministers originally described.
In the February message, the company argued that “the logic of joining up primary and secondary [care] data is unarguable” and described Foundry as “ideal” for the task. It also warned that the politics was “not straightforward” because GP data had been explicitly excluded from the contract.
Those words capture the tension at the centre of the exchanges: Palantir was making a case for broader use of its software while recognising that the proposed expansion crossed an existing contractual boundary. They do not establish that ministers accepted the argument or authorised a change.
Patient trust at stake
The British Medical Association said the move raised “scope creep” concerns that could undermine patient trust and the doctor-patient relationship. Its objection centres on the prospect of a platform being extended beyond the limits set out when the contract was announced.
For patients, the issue is not simply which software the NHS uses. It is whether sensitive information held in general practice could become part of a US contractor’s platform after explicit assurances that GP data would remain outside the agreement.
The BMA’s warning concerns the possible effect on trust, rather than an established finding that patients’ records have been transferred or that the doctor-patient relationship has already been damaged. The disclosed correspondence demonstrates the company’s request for consideration of an extension.
NHS data leaders’ position that legislative change would be needed adds a separate procedural barrier. On that account, expanding the platform to include GP records would require more than agreement between the contractor and a minister.
Government decision remains open
Palantir said it had long argued that data sharing improves the NHS and that decisions about how its software is rolled out are for the government. The company denies wrongdoing. Its position places responsibility for any decision to expand the platform with ministers.
The Department of Health and Social Care declined to comment. Health secretary Yvette Cooper has told parliament that a review of the contract is ongoing. The contract’s next end point is 2029, but that date does not establish what the review will conclude or whether its scope will change.
The unresolved questions are whether the government will pursue the proposed extension and, if so, how it would address the original exclusion of GP data. Until those decisions are made, the messages show a lobbying effort to widen the platform’s reach, rather than an agreed change to how GP records are used.
