NHS organisations that care for millions of people in England are rejecting Palantir’s patient data technology, according to freedom of information responses that reveal health bosses believe they can find better or equal alternatives in many cases.

Some health bodies said the £330m federated data platform (FDP) operated by the controversial US company had made it easier to manage waiting lists and has improved surgery scheduling. But, from Gateshead to Truro, others said they were declining to use it or had carried out trials and reverted to old systems. A Suffolk trust said other systems “supercede” the FDP’s functionality, while Greater Manchester’s care board called the Palantir system “duplicative” and “retrograde”.

The responses come as Andy Burnham’s government faces a crunch decision about whether to exercise a break clause in the seven-year NHS-Palantir deal, which was intended to better integrate the health system’s data to improve clinical accuracy and efficiency. Protests against the US firm’s role have also focused on its other contracts with the Israeli military and Donald Trump’s homeland security forces. There is also dispute over evidence for the system’s effectiveness and public concern about the involvement in the NHS of a company cofounded by the tech billionaire Peter Thiel, who said in 2023: “The NHS makes people sick.”

According to more than two dozen FOI responses reviewed by the Guardian, 16 trusts and health boards declared they do not use it, following its introduction in March 2024. They include the University hospitals of North Midlands NHS trust, which said it will not use it primarily because “it does not appear to provide functionality over and above what we have already” and Dorset HealthCare university trust said it “will not be adopting or going live with the FDP”. Humber Teaching NHS foundation trust said: “We have no plans to use it.”

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS foundation trust said it has used the system but it has “not offered significant improvements on local systems”. Avon and Wiltshire mental health partnership NHS trust said it had yet to find an FDP tool that offered significantly more than its existing capabilities and University hospitals Birmingham NHS foundation trust, which cares for more than 2 million people, said it had no plans to use it, citing “limited expected benefit over existing solutions”. The FOIs were gathered by Medact, a health campaign that opposes Palantir’s role in the NHS, and posted to a public transparency website, WhatDoTheyKnow.

Palantir has previously challenged claims that other software could be just as effective, with its senior vice-president, the former Labour MP Tom Watson, saying last week: “If there are companies that can do it, they would have taken part in free and open competition” to run the FDP.

Watson, a Labour peer and former minister alongside Burnham, was appointed as Palantir’s chief lobbyist last month amid a wave of opposition to the Palantir deal. He warned his former colleagues in Labour not to let “mob rule … lead procurement practices”.

But two parliamentary select committees have urged the government to end Palantir’s contract, including the Commons’ science and technology committee. Martin Wrigley, a Liberal Democrat member of the committee, said the NHS boards’ responses “justify what I have been saying for the last year, which is that Palantir’s system is just not that good”.

“Once again we have proven that centrally dictating a solution to the NHS can’t work,” he said. “We have to get back to developing interoperability so each trust has its own software but with a set of standards for how they interact. Palantir are great sales people but they over-promise and under-deliver.”

Dr Rhiannon Mihranian Osborne, a spokesperson for Medact, said the FOIs showed alternatives existed, a safe transition away from Palantir was possible and “the government has no excuse to extend the contract”.

“Instead of outsourcing key NHS functions to big tech companies, the government must back NHS innovation and the highly skilled NHS data professionals who work alongside doctors and nurses to deliver care in the public interest,” she said.

Palantir accused Medact of “slanted analysis” and of “misleading the public”.

“The FDP is, objectively, a successful programme,” a spokesperson said, adding that its purpose was to provide trusts with tools to draw on depending on their existing capabilities and needs. “It is one of just 20% of major government programmes with a green delivery rating, with ministers stating that it ‘is significantly exceeding its benefits forecast and has exceeded every target’.”

It said NHS trusts, including Chelsea and Westminster, Leicester, Northampton, Bath, North Cumbria, Croydon, Great Western, Dorset, Chesterfield, Ashford and St Peters and Norfolk have publicly praised the FDP.

Palantir also points to NHS data that shows trusts using the FDP have carried out 117,000 additional operations and a 14.3% reduction in discharge delays for long-stay patients. NHS England has, however, had to add a caveat to its statistics, making clear it cannot draw conclusions about cause and effect as other variables have not been controlled for.

The government’s national data guardian for health and social care, Dr Nicola Byrne, this week urged ministers to give substantial weight to the “trust factor” when deciding on Palantir’s fate. More than 44,000 people have filed legal objections to their health data being shared with, stored in or used by the FDP. Byrne, a government-appointed watchdog, said there was evidence “a significant number of local organisations” were reluctant to adopt the FDP including due to concerns about Palantir and “a preference for other solutions”.

Sophie Don, the chief executive of Voror, a patient data company that bid unsuccessfully against Palantir, said: “Of course Palantir isn’t the only company that can do this. It doesn’t surprise me that it is making things harder … If NHS staff are choosing not to use it, it’s a clear sign it’s not creating value. There are many home-grown systems that would release much more value to the NHS than the [Palantir] platform.”

A spokesperson for NHS England said: “137 NHS trusts have now reported benefits from the wide range of tools available on the platform – helping staff join-up and improve care for patients, and work more efficiently.”