Health Bill
Following this year’s King’s Speech, the Health Bill has been introduced in Parliament. When passed, it will enact changes to the National Health Service Act 2006, including:
- The abolition of NHS England and transfer of its functions to either Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) or the Department of Health and Social Care, including transferring some powers directly to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.
- Section 126(1) of the 2006 Act will be amended so as to make ICBs responsible for commissioning pharmacy services instead of NHS England.
- The Bill would remove the requirement for the establishment of integrated care partnerships (ICPs), which currently sit alongside ICBs, and are responsible for strategic planning of integrated services.
- Enabling a single patient record to be created that summarises patient health information in one place. The bill would enable the Secretary of State to legally require all NHS providers (including GPs) to disclose data to allow it to be combined in a single patient record. This would be visible to patients and clinicians providing care, be subject to existing data protection legislation, and like other NHS data, have the potential to be approved for sharing with public and private researchers. The Secretary of State would have the power to set fines for non-compliance.
- Abolishing the Health Services Safety Investigations Body and transferring its functions to the Care Quality Commission.
- Abolishing Healthwatch and transferring local Healthwatch functions to ICBs and local authorities.
The explanatory notes to the bill explain, in relation to the conferral of primary care functions on ICBs, that the intention is for the Secretary of State to retain an oversight role concerning functions that are most effectively discharged at a national level.
Community Pharmacy Contract Framework
Community Pharmacy England has agreed a new Community Pharmacy Contract Framework (CPCF) with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). The CPCF will involve the following regulatory changes from autumn 2026:
- a national NHS Independent Prescribing offer as an extension of Pharmacy First and the pharmacy contraception service, including:
- prescribing within existing Pharmacy First clinical pathways and the pharmacy contraception service
- up to 5 new prescribing-only pathways subject to assessment by a clinical reference group
- appropriate circumstances for prescription management
Other regulatory changes that will be made:
- enable pharmacies to close for up to 4 hours in a day up to once a month for learning and development purposes
- technical amendments to dispute resolution and market entry processes – this will include making contractor co-operation a prerequisite for the commissioner’s obligation to undertake or continue dispute resolution
- moving Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks from the PQS into the terms of service
- regulatory changes that will apply to IP pharmacies conducting NHS clinical services, including using an approved EPS system
DHSC says it will continue to work with Community Pharmacy England to explore possible actions that may help protect pharmacy staff from violence and abuse and further reduce the inappropriate management of EPS nominations.
I’ve recently published an analysis on LinkedIn discussing the systemic risk emerging from the rollout of the Single Patient Record (SPR) framework. I wanted to share it with the members of PLEA.
The post analyzes the stark regulatory mismatch on the frontline: a GP registrar logging a benchmark of 1,500+ supervised hours to manage complex history-taking, compared to the statutory minimum 90-hour baseline for pharmacist independent prescribers.
When you introduce full ‘write-access’ to a national database under intense retail task-switching conditions, a flawed electronic entry isn’t just a local issue anymore—it permanently alters the national clinical record.
I believe this highlighting of real-world legal and clinical exposure is vital for final-year students and junior pharmacists to understand before they register. I would highly value your law and ethics perspective on this.
If the text resonates with you, please drop a comment to share your insights
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/pranay-kotak_clinicalgovernance-patientsafety-singlepatientrecord-share-7468204696671944705–tN9/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_android&rcm=ACoAAACmdlQBUusBrU6dn6xvaFA2pIYW8xxx6M4
There isa major weakness in the Bill as it stands.
The Bill amends section 259 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 and places it on providers registered with the Care Quality Commission. Community pharmacies are not among them. They are regulated by the General Pharmaceutical Council, so the contractors who dispense around one billion NHS prescription items a year fall outside the duty, and their data will reach the record only by request and goodwill. The same is true of the distance-selling online pharmacies on which a growing number of patients now rely, which operate under the same NHS arrangements and the same registration.