Big changes coming for the NHS

The government has set out a major overhaul of the NHS in England, with Health and Social Care Secretary James Murray announcing reforms that the Department of Health and Social Care says will help end the 8 am scramble for GP appointments, cut up to 20,000 A&E visits a year and save the health service more than £20 million annually.

Ministers set out the changes as the NHS Modernisation Bill reached its second reading in Parliament on Monday (1 June). The Bill introduces a single patient record and abolishes NHS England, folding its functions into the Department of Health and Social Care.

The government is presenting the package as the next stage of the 10 Year Health Plan, alongside a set of consumer-facing changes it says are already taking effect.

Online booking requests are now available for GP appointments across England. The government said this ends the 8 am scramble, in which patients phone their surgery the moment the lines open and often find every appointment has already gone.

GP satisfaction has risen from 60% in July 2024 to 75% in March 2026, which ministers cite as evidence the wider modernisation push is working. This change runs alongside the Bill rather than forming part of it.

At the centre of the Bill is the single patient record, which will join up fragmented health information across the country for the first time.

It will require all NHS providers, including hospitals and GPs, to share data so doctors, nurses and specialists anywhere in England can securely see a patient’s medical history wherever they are treated.

One health record

For patients, the headline benefit is that they will no longer have to repeat their medical history to every new clinician they meet.

Pregnant women currently have to recount their entire medical history from memory at a first midwife appointment, with gaps appearing as the pregnancy progresses, something the record is designed to fix at source.

The government expects the reforms to save more than £20 million a year by cutting medication errors, adverse drug reactions and duplicate prescribing, giving clinicians a complete view of a patient’s medicines, allergies and prescribing history.

It also estimates the record will save doctors around 500,000 hours a year currently lost to searching for information and inputting data, time it says can go back into treating patients.

The government projects up to 20,000 fewer A&E attendances and 6,000 fewer hospital admissions each year, driven by better community care for frailty patients and fewer misdiagnoses. Clinicians will get improved access to records as early as 2027 for specialties including maternity and frailty care.

Murray, who was diagnosed with a rare neurological condition in his 20s and is now symptom-free, said he knew first-hand how much effort it takes to keep different parts of the health service joined up and how distressing it is for patients to repeat their history over and over.

He said the single patient record sits at the heart of the Bill and would end that for good while saving clinicians’ time.

Alec Price-Forbes, National Chief Clinical Information Officer at NHS England, said patient information had been held in silos for too long, creating duplication and gaps in understanding, and that the record would give clinicians and patients a single point of truth.

The end of NHS England and start of NHS online

The Bill also abolishes NHS England, transferring its functions into the Department of Health and Social Care and the wider system.

Local leaders have complained that the current structure creates two centres, generating confusion and diluting accountability for the NHS. The government says scrapping NHS England will cut duplication and free up resources for the frontline, with less spent on administration.

The second reading coincided with the naming of John Browett as Chairman of the new Online NHS Trust.

NHS Online will provide virtual specialist care through the NHS App and video consultations when it launches in 2027, and the government says it will deliver the equivalent of up to 8.5 million appointments and assessments in its first three years, four times the output of an average trust.

Browett’s appointment formally establishes the trust as the government works to digitise the service.

The government said the reforms come as NHS performance improves. The overall waiting list is at its lowest level in three and a half years, and fell by 110,000 in March, which the government calls the largest single-month improvement in 17 years.

More than 100 community diagnostic centres are now open at evenings and weekends, an extra 2,000 GPs and almost 8,700 mental health workers have been recruited, ambulance response times for conditions such as strokes and heart attacks are three minutes faster than last year, and NHS productivity is up 2.8%.

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