BMA calls for NHS doctors to reject using the FDP

The British Medical Association (BMA) has called for NHS doctors to limit usage of the federated data platform (FDP) because of its supplier Palantir’s links to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

US firm Palantir signed a £330m contract in 2023 to provide the FDP and NHS England’s medium term planning framework, published in October, said all trusts should be using FDP core products from April.

However there has been increasing concern from clinicians, patients and politicians about the NHS supplier’s provision of surveillance software to ICE, after the last few weeks saw ICE agents fatally shoot two US citizens.

The UK government’s contracts with Palantir have also come under scrutiny after it emerged that prime minister Keir Starmer paid an “informal visit” to the firm’s US headquarters with former US ambassador Peter Mandleson in February 2025.

In a rapid response, published in the BMJ on 27 January, Tom Dolphin, chair of the BMA UK council, said: “While Palantir’s involvement supporting the work of US Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) is nothing new, the doctrine and scale of ICE’s role in the United States appears to have shifted dramatically over the past year with violence and deaths seen across the US.

“Given Palantir’s increasing centrality to our National Health Service, we must pay attention to the role Palantir play in facilitating ICE’s activities and the implications this has for patient confidence in an NHS working in partnership with them.”

He adds: “In light of reports coming out of the US – that formerly separate datasets including medical records, have been processed and linked by ICE using Palantir’s bespoke Immigration OS platform – it is the view of the BMA that doctors working in the NHS can no longer provide the tacit endorsement that using a product implies and must immediately take steps to explore refusing any non-direct care usage of Palantir’s federated data platform, with a view to moving away from the platform entirely in time, when a suitable alternative can be put in place.”

The BMA had previously voted to lobby against the firm’s involvement in the NHS at its annual representative meeting in June 2025.

A spokesperson for Palantir, told Digital Health News: “ICE’s use of our software is longstanding – dating back to 2011, and has continued across multiple administrations, including those under Presidents Obama, Biden, and Trump.”

NHS trusts with their own products have consistently pushed back on adopting the FDP, with many saying that they have local systems that are already working well.

Despite 150 trusts having onboarded to the platform, only 77 were live and actively reporting benefits in September 2025, according to NHSE figures.

NHS acute trusts which have not adopted the FDP include University Hospitals Birmingham Foundation Trust; Guy’s and St Thomas’ FT; the Northern Care Alliance FT; Nottingham University Hospitals Trust; the Royal Free London group; Sheffield Teaching Hospitals FT; University College London Hospitals FT; and Frimley Health FT.

Greater Manchester Integrated Care Board is the only ICB to have not signed up to the platform.