King’s Speech 2026: key health and social care points at a glance

Yesterday’s King’s Speech (13 May 2026) sets out the government’s legislative agenda for the next Parliamentary session and beyond.

The accompanying briefing notes speak of “significant reforms” and “putting the NHS back on its feet”.

For health and social care organisations, it confirms the reforms set out in the NHS 10-year health plan and is being described as the largest reorganisation of the NHS in more than a decade.

Set out below are the main points for the sector:

New Health Bill

The NHS Modernisation Bill is intended to simplify the NHS’s national architecture, reduce bureaucracy and improve patient experience – particularly through using data and digital tools.

Governance and system architecture

At the heart of the Bill is the formal abolition of NHS England as a statutory body, with many of its functions returning to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. The Government argues that this will streamline decision‑making, clarify accountability and remove duplication across national bodies.

The background briefing notes emphasise the need to strip back national bureaucracy, simplify oversight arrangements and make it clearer who is responsible for delivery and performance.

For Integrated Care Boards (ICBs), the Bill proposes a move towards a leaner, more delivery‑focused system aligned with neighbourhood and place‑based care, supported by a series of targeted changes to how ICBs are governed and how commissioning is carried out:

• Stronger democratic accountability – by requiring mayoral nominees to sit on ICBs
• Clearer role as strategic commissioners – by transferring responsibility for most commissioning functions to ICBs, including primary care, dentistry, ophthalmology and pharmacy, with only highly specialised services retained nationally.
• Greater flexibility and simpler planning – by refining ICB board membership and streamlining planning requirements, including removing the statutory requirement for Integrated Care Partnerships and enabling ICB plans at neighbourhood and strategic level.

Data, digital and patient experience

A core pillar of the Bill is the legal basis for a Single Patient Record described as a ‘long overdue fix to fragmented care’.

Its aims are to bring together health and social care data into one shared record to improve safety, quality and continuity of care. Individuals will be able to access their health records securely on the NHS App and use them to make more informed decisions about their care, addressing long standing issues with fragmented records and information silos. There will be a phased rollout with the initial focus on maternity and frailty services by 2028, with learning used to inform wider rollout across the NHS.

The reforms are intended to support safer transitions between services and settings – and improved joined-up care.

Safety, quality and oversight 

The Bill aims to simplify and better align patient safety functions, reducing duplication and confusion across national bodies and providers. This will see the transfer of Health Services Safety and Investigations Body functions to the CQC. It will also extend the time limit for the CQC to bring legal action against a provider.

The Bill proposes embedding patient perspectives, with the transfer of Healthwatch England’s functions to DHSC and establishing a dedicated Patient Experience Directorate to inform policy development. Local Healthwatch functions relating to healthcare will transfer to ICBs, while functions relating to social care move to local authorities.

‘Hillsborough Law’ Public Office (Accountability) Bill

This is an existing Bill and will introduce new duties of candour for public bodies, reform the offence of “misconduct in public office” and provide families with access to non-means tested legal aid for inquests involving public authorities.
The Hillsborough Law would fundamentally shift the balance of power and accountability by:

• Requiring public bodies and officials to act with full candour, proactively sharing evidence, correcting errors and helping investigations find the truth, with criminal penalties for failure.
• Making candour a core professional obligation for public officials, enforced through mandatory ethical codes and misconduct procedures.
• Introducing new criminal offences for misleading the public and strengthening sanctions for serious misconduct in public office.
• Levelling the playing field at inquests by guaranteeing bereaved families non‑means tested legal aid. The briefing notes accompanying the speech indicate that the legal aid reforms will increase the number of legally aided inquests from approximately 200-400 to up to approximately 11,400 per year. This expansion of legal aid will cost up to approximately £185 million per year, plus operational costs.

What was not in the speech?

A private member’s Bill, The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, to legalise assisted dying in England and Wales. Its progress stalled in the House of Lords amid extensive amendments and procedural delay, meaning it did not complete its passage before the end of the parliamentary session despite the fact MPs had voted in favour of it. The Government has not committed further parliamentary time to reintroducing the Bill, although supporters are hoping that another backbench MP may seek to reintroduce a similar measure through the next private members’ bill ballot.

We will keep readers updated.

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