NHS workers demand Burnham cancels Palantir contract outside Labour conference

NHS workers demanded the government end its £330 million contract with controversial US spy tech company Palantir in protests outside the Labour Party conference and the Department of Health and Social Care today. Unison, Unite and British Medical Association (BMA) members joined the Liverpool rally urging PM Andy Burnham to drop the firm’s contract to run the health service’s Federated Data Platform (FDP) and not renew it at the upcoming break clause next February. The action was part of a global week of action against Palantir, which has an Israeli defence contract, by health workers and unions in the US, Brazil and Europe. Palantir, which has also used US government data to help Ice track and deport migrants, is contractually obliged to provide NHS England today with an exit plan should they decide to end the FDP contract, which is expected to cost £1.1 billion over its seven-year lifespan. No Palantir in the NHS campaigner at Medact campaign group, Dr Rhiannon Mihranian Osborne, said: “Patients and NHS staff are united in their opposition to this contract, and the last three years have seen unprecedented levels of professional and patient campaigning. “The BMA and Unison have both urged the government not to renew Palantir’s NHS contract, and over 85,000 patients have made formal complaints to their hospitals. “The government has an urgent opportunity to choose patients and staff over big tech, it must take it. By uniting in this global day of action, doctors, nurses and clinicians across the world are ready to use our shared power as workers to stop contracts with Palantir.” Hope Worsdale, of the medical campaign group Just Treatment, added: “Patients and health workers across England want Palantir out of our National Health Service. “A company with a track record in surveillance, military technology and complicity in human rights abuses shouldn’t be anywhere near our personal health data. “In this historic global week of action, we are calling on the UK government to restore patients’ trust by cancelling Palantir’s toxic NHS contract.” On Saturday, Labour Party delegates submitted an emergency motion calling on the Department of Health and Social Care to exercise a break clause in its contract with Palantir to run the FDP. The conference arrangements committee blocked it. The department was contacted for comment.