Former Labour health minister Zubir Ahmed has called for a "forensic" review of a £330m NHS deal with American tech giant Palantir after LBC found that backlogs rose at half of the trusts using its technology.
LBC found that half of the 16 NHS trusts in England using Palantir’s Outpatient Care Co-ordination Solution saw their backlogs rise between the national rollout of the technology in April 2024 and June this year.
Mr Ahmed, who stepped down from Sir Keir Starmer’s government in May, said LBC's findings add to "uncertainty" about the software’s effectiveness after a "poorer than anticipated performance.”
This represents a notable change in position from the Glasgow Southwest MP. Speaking as a government minister in April, he claimed the technology, built by the controversial American AI company, was a "success" and had "exceeded every single target".
Dr Ahmed, whose ministerial brief focused on health innovation and safety, said LBC's findings should prompt a greater "spirit of inquiry" into whether the NHS contract with the company is delivering the promised benefits.
He added: "With companies like Palantir, and other companies where we spend a lot of NHS money, we do need to be very forensic and muscular about making sure we’re getting value for money.
"The ferocity and granularity with which we need to answer that question now goes up a notch, given the data that you’ve found, and the poorer performance than we would have anticipated."
Asked whether he thought the Palantir-led software is effectively bringing down waiting lists, the former NHS transplant surgeon said the evidence was “unclear”.
"You can’t say these waiting lists are coming down purely because of the technology," Dr Ahmed said. "It’s just not that simple to say this tool will have this effect."
LBC found that half of the 16 NHS trusts in England using Palantir’s Outpatient Care Co-ordination Solution, which is designed to help clear waiting lists, saw their backlogs rise between the national rollout of the technology in April 2024 and June this year.
In contrast, waiting lists across England fell by around 4% over the same period.
The software is part of a wider digital platform being built by Palantir to improve efficiency across the health service, called the Federated Data Platform (FDP).
The contract to build the FDP is expected to cost the government up to £330 million over seven years, while the full cost of implementing it across England is estimated to exceed £1 billion, according to an official report published last month.
But it has been dogged by concerns about the technology’s effectiveness and Palantir’s ties to the Trump administration, which it provides with AI tools used by the US military and immigration enforcement agency, ICE.
Dr Ahmed acknowledged concerns about “critical infrastructure” like the NHS becoming reliant on American technology and called for more “diverse” domestic providers.
NHS England and ministers have repeatedly pointed to the number of patients flagged for removal from waiting lists as evidence of the FDP’s benefits.
By December 2025, they said the waiting list for outpatients in need of appointments or procedures had been slashed by 217,000.
But critics say those headline figures can obscure what is happening to overall backlogs.
At Chelsea and Westminster NHS Trust alone, more than 183,000 patients were identified for removal from the waiting list – yet its backlog rose by 21% over the period analysed by LBC.
Donald Campbell, director of advocacy at campaign group Foxglove, said: “The government and Palantir have been relying on these cherry-picked figures that don't give the full figure, and now that's starting to unravel.
“If we're going to have a debate about Palantir's role in the NHS, it needs to be based on solid data rather than the marketing spin we've seen.”
It comes as Prime Minister Andy Burnham faces mounting pressure from MPs to use a 2027 break clause allowing the government to end the Palantir contract early.
Two influential cross-party parliamentary groups – the Science, Innovation, and Technology Committee and the Health and Social Care Committee – have urged the government to cut its ties with Palantir.
There is also growing scepticism within NHS England, with its chief executive Sir Jim Mackey admitting to MPs in July that he had "raised challenges" about whether the claimed benefits of the Palantir platform were “objective and can be fully stood up.”
In Greater Manchester, the local NHS care board which covers the prime minister’s constituency has refused to adopt the Palantir system because of its cost and concerns about its effectiveness.
The Department of Health said the contract will be reviewed ahead of the 2027 break clause and insisted thousands of patients are benefiting from the wider FDP every month.
It said the Outpatient Care Co-ordination Solution helps NHS teams identify patients who may no longer need to be on a waiting list, but cannot stop new patients joining , meaning backlogs can still rise if more are added than removed.
A Department of Health spokesperson told LBC: "As per standard practice, this contract will be reviewed ahead of the February 2027 break clause, but it is clear that thousands more patients are benefitting from the NHS Federated Data Platform every month, including through the reduction in the number of unnecessary days spent in hospital after treatment.
"The Outpatient Care Co-ordination Solution is not designed to prevent people joining waiting lists and if more are added than removed then the waiting list would rise. This is not a reflection on the software."
In response, a Palantir spokesperson told LBC: “We are proud that our software is helping to improve patient care nationally.
"Since the software has been rolled out, NHS trusts using it have recorded 110,000 additional operations, a 15 per cent reduction in discharge delays for long-stay patients, and a 6.8 per cent average improvement against the NHS's 28-day Faster Diagnosis Standard."
