King's Speech 2026: Health
This briefing explores what announcements the government could make in the King’s Speech on 13 May 2026 about health.
Approximate read time: 10 minutes
Legislation is required for the government’s plans to abolish NHS England. The government has also announced further structural changes to the health system, including to the membership and functions of integrated care boards.
The government’s 10 year health plan set out its intention to simplify the patient safety landscape by:
- abolishing Healthwatch—an independent statutory body that collates and reports feedback from service users—and over 150 local Healthwatches
- moving the Health Services Safety Investigations Body into the Care Quality Commission
- transferring functions of the Patient Safety Commissioner to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency
The government has also said it intends to legislate for a single patient record: all of a patient’s medical records in one place, accessible to the patient.
In the 2024 King’s Speech, the government announced it would produce a draft bill to ban conversion therapy: a range of practices which seek to change or suppress a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. The draft bill was not published during the 2024–26 session.
This briefing has been prepared to assist members of the House of Lords in the debates on the King’s Speech. It draws upon material from the public domain and does not constitute official information about the government’s intentions or provide a complete list of bills to be announced.