HEALTH campaigners demanded the government put an end to the “dizzying revolving door of corruption” after it was revealed today that a top health official had close ties with Palantir while it was bidding for a £330 million contract with the NHS.

Samantha Jones, the Department of Health and Social Care’s most senior civil servant, was an adviser to a partner of the controversial US surveillance tech firm at the time of the patient record contract.

A permanent secretary at the DHSC, Ms Jones was also acting as an adviser to health consultancy Carnall Farrar, which is part of a consortium with Palantir, according to the Financial Times.

Keep Our NHS Public co-chairman Dr Tony O’Sullivan slammed the government, saying: “The revolving door of official corruption is dizzying.”

“It is important to expose it,” he told the Morning Star. “The links — between public servants, consultancies who advise both Palantir and government at the same time — stink of legal corruption.

“The stables must be swept clean, unethical links exposed, the Palantir contract ended, and a change of direction established to invest wholly and ethically in the publicly provided NHS.”

The government awarded the contract to the tech firm co-founded by hard-right billionaire Peter Thiel in November 2023 to aggregate NHS patient information “with support from” a group of consultancy firms, which included Carnall Farrar.

Ms Jones was advising the consultancy between September 2023 and February 2024. The firm denied she ever worked on the deal with Palantir.

When the NHS agreed to the deal with the tech company, she was the lead non-executive director on the health department’s board.

Ms Jones’s appointment as permanent secretary at the DHSC in April 2025 was already seen as controversial because of her connection to companies with public contracts.

These include 12 companies for which she had worked or held shares which benefited from contracts with the DHSC and other health organisations, according to previous FT reporting.

Privacy International senior policy officer Sarah Simms told the Morning Star there was “a lack of transparency around this contract” since the very beginning.

“Given the company’s poor human rights record it has been extremely concerning. Public trust and the privacy and security of patient data is essential to delivering healthcare and the NHS, yet reports around the contract continuously undermine this.”

Ms Simms added that several of these concerns were echoed last week by the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, “who have said this company should not have a role in the UK public sector due to its incompatibility with UK values.”

Amnesty International UK crisis campaigner Tom Guha said the revelations surrounding the top health official were “deeply troubling,” adding: “There’s a cloak and dagger routine around this contract, and it’s not acceptable.”

Mr Guha pointed to Palantir’s role in the genocide in Gaza and its tech being used by immigration officers in the US in Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

He said: “These are not abstract controversies — they are ongoing violations of international law.

“The NHS constitution states that it belongs to the people, underpinned by core values of compassionate care, dignity and humanity. Those values cannot stop at the ward door. They must extend to every contract signed with taxpayers’ money.

“With the contract renewal approaching in February 2027, officials have a clear choice: embed a company deeply involved in human rights abuses further into our health infrastructure or take the break clause and send a clear message that companies profiting from genocide cannot expect to continue business as usual.”

On Thursday, over a hundred NHS patients are set to protest outside Manchester Central Convention Centre during a yearly NHS conference bringing together top decision-makers in the health service.

Part of the Pull the Plug campaign, they will call on government ministers to activate the break-clause in the NHS contract with Palantir, drawing attention to the dangers surrounding the firm’s use of patient data and the “encroachment of unethical Big Tech companies into public services.”

Speakers will include representatives from Amnesty, Good Law Project, Unison, Charm, and Young Struggle Manchester.

More than 65,000 patients have written to their local NHS trusts in the past few months, urging them not to adopt Palantir’s tech, organisers added.