The June 2025 briefing to Wes Streeting (2nd left) was released under the Freedom of Information Act. The June 2025 briefing to Wes Streeting (2nd left) was released under the Freedom of Information Act. NHS deal with AI firm Palantir called into question after officials' concerns revealed Health officials fear Palantir's reputation will hinder the delivery of a "vital" £330m NHS contract, according to briefings seen by the Guardian, sparking fresh calls for the deal to be scrapped. In 2023, ministers selected Palantir, a US surveillance technology company that also works for the Israeli military and Donald Trump's ICE operation, to build an AI-enabled data platform to connect disparate health information across the NHS . Now it has emerged that after Keir Starmer demanded faster deployment, Whitehall officials privately warned that the public perception of Palantir would limit its rollout, meaning the contract would not offer value for money.

A deal between Google's artificial intelligence firm DeepMind and the UK's NHS had serious "inadequacies", an academic paper has suggested. More than a million patient records were shared with DeepMind to build an app to alert doctors about patients at risk of acute kidney injury (AKI). The authors said that it was "inexcusable" patients were not told how their data would be used. Google's DeepMind said that the report contained "major errors". It told the BBC that it was commissioning its own analysis and rebuttal, which the authors said they welcomed. When the deal between London's Royal Free Hospital and DeepMind became public in February 2016, some three months after the data started to be collected, it caused controversy over the amount of patient information being shared and the lack of public consultation.

Update, 16 May 2016: We have received more information from DeepMind and the Royal Free on this story, and are considering their response.