Unison Cambridge University & Royal Papworth Hospitals

12/08/2026

Palantir has won an estimated £670 million in UK government contracts, including work with the NHS and the Ministry of Defence — yet in 2024 it paid just £2.1 million in UK tax.

“Systems that enable tax to be shirked on an industrial scale clearly have to change,” said Andrea Egan, UNISON General Secretary.

Read the full investigation by PSI, EPSU and CICTAR: https://publicservices.international/resources/news/palantirs-tiny-14-tax-rate-exposed-governments-must-stop-awarding-contracts-to-tax-avoiders?lang=en&id=16669 ✊

05/08/2026

🚨NHS England has just been forced to revise its figures on Palantir after months of scrutiny from staff.

The pressure is working. No Palantir in our NHS!

03/08/2026

Body providing care in east London and Bedfordshire accused of ‘unfathomable and unacceptable’ move

18/07/2026

DOCUMENT AND ESCALATE YOUR STAFFING ISSUES - It can seem pointless sometimes, when nothing immediately changes, but it is vital (as is the case here) when any senior member of staff/regulatory body/minister attempts to claim that they had no idea about the situation on the ground.

Staffing levels (alongside capacity issues) can often be the major cause of deviations from previous established practice in UK trusts, and so the old orthodoxies of responding to incidents by solely blaming individuals becomes increasingly (for the most part) redundant.

Why is a nurse rushing a med round?
Why are the washes not as thorough as they should be?
Why does documentation get missed?
Why was a particular lengthy and complex protocol not followed?
Why was a post-op patient not monitored as closely as they should have been?
Why do the records show that one HCSW appeared to check in on all 30 patients in under 60 seconds?

“Originally identified in NASA’s investigations into the 1986 Apollo Challenger disaster, normalisation of deviance describes how individuals or teams drift away from established practice standards.”

“…deviations can interact in unpredictable ways. A minor documentation shortcut, plus a communication breakdown, together with understaffing, can combine into catastrophic harm.”

“…Contrary to the pervading narrative, staff did report concerns. From 2012, the service manager (and lead nurse) frequently reported that staffing was unsafe to both the trust and to the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority “

Elaine Maxwell explains why the normalisation of deviance found at Muckamore Abbey Hospital is relevant to nursing practice in all fields.

16/07/2026

🚨 Patients were told Palantir's £330m NHS data platform was essential.

Now Democracy for Sale's investigation reveals that 54 of the 139 NHS trusts "live" on the platform have never logged in to its apps. Its flagship cancer tool was used by just six trusts in nine months - one clinician called it a "glorified spreadsheet." The NHS's own staff admit the software is "slow and clunky" and ten times slower than what it replaced.

So how did Palantir get this far? A £30,000-a-month lobbying operation, including Peter Mandelson's firm opening doors without declaring its client.

As our very own Hope Worsdale told Democracy for Sale: "Palantir are not an exceptional tech company, they are exceptional lobbyists and self-promoters."

MPs across parties are now demanding the government use the break clause and end this contract. NHS data analysts say they're ready to build the alternative themselves.

Andy Burnham: put patients before Palantir. Trigger the break clause.

14/07/2026

RIP to a union brother

Sam Neill was a proud, lifelong member of the Equity New Zealand trade union since 1979.

"I'm an unabashed lefty and I've never made any apology for that because I think any decent society, any country with a modicum of civility should and must recognise the right of unions to collectively work in the interests of their members."

14/07/2026

Data supporting claims that Palantir’s technology has improved services for NHS patients is riddled with errors, several hospital trusts have admitted.

Amid fierce opposition to the spytech firm’s involvement in the UK’s public services, its supporters have cited NHS data showing Palantir’s technology helped reduce delays in discharging hospital patients by 15%.

But an analysis by the Financial Times found that claim was based on underlying data showing a drop in discharge delays from hundreds of thousands to zero – something that is extremely unlikely to have actually occurred.

After this was highlighted by the newspaper, four NHS trusts admitted the data contains numerous errors.

Palantir works with police forces and militaries around the world and is accused of complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza, as well as in human rights abuses by federal immigration agents in the US.

Its federated data platform is supposed to unify different data sources across the NHS to help it run its services more efficiently, but campaigners say giving the firm access to sensitive patient data poses too great a risk.

They have called on the government to cancel the NHS’s £330m contract with the company, using a break clause that can be executed in 2027.

Last week MPs from the health and social care select committee also urged ministers to end the contract, citing doubts about the data platform’s performance.

Charles Tallack, former head of operational research and evaluation at NHS England, told the Financial Times that the evidence supporting Palantir’s impact on discharge delays looked “increasingly flimsy”.

The newspaper identified irregularities in acute discharge data for 42% of all NHS hospital trusts across four years.

The Office for Statistics Regulation has launched an investigation after a previous story by the newspaper revealed the NHS had admitted that figures it had provided about Palantir’s technology did not prove its effectiveness.

12/07/2026

10/07/2026

UPDATE, 7/10: A win is a win. 💪 Following widespread backlash — including SAG-AFTRA's call for members to opt out — Meta has withdrawn the feature. Read more here: https://deadline.com/2026/07/meta-removes-muse-image-ai-feature-backlash-1236979605/

Meta now lets anyone use your Instagram photos in AI images without your consent. SAG-AFTRA recommends that (and all Instagram users) opt-OUT of Meta’s new AI image generation tool, Muse Image. Take action to protect your likeness.

09/07/2026

Yesterday’s Occupational Therapy Research and Development symposium.

A productive day for all involved, and including talks from Regional Officer Rad and Branch Secretary Ben.

A reminder that membership of the Royal College of Occupational Therapists gives you UNISON membership, entitling you to help and support whenever needed.

If you would like to contact the branch, email us on [email protected], or come and talk to us at our monthly stands in the concourse.