NHS Confederation welcomes 'game-changing' King's Speech commitments

Responding to the King’s Speech Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said:

“The King’s Speech has some game changing commitments that will improve the nation’s health – with reforms to the Mental Health Act and legislation to create a smokefree generation at the top of the list. NHS leaders will also welcome moves to transfer more power to local communities.

“Reforming the Mental Health Act is long overdue and is a vital step in helping to move more support for mental health, learning disability and autism patients into the community and reduce detentions. These are increasing every year and require expensive inpatient treatment. The reforms will also help reduce the unacceptable disparities in rates of detention for people from some ethnic minority backgrounds and improve recovery rates and outcomes.

“The commitment to reducing rates of smoking and to eventually phase out smoking is a key goal of local health and care leaders – they have been calling for smoke-free legislation since the 2022 Khan Review.

“Our members will also support the focus on children and young people, with measures to tackle the impact of junk food and high-caffeine energy drinks a welcome starting point.

“It’s also pleasing to see steps being taken to protect the NHS and other public services from future disruption caused by cyber attacks. Patient care should not be held to ransom by hackers, especially with health leaders and their teams working so hard to try to improve performance and tackle care backlogs.”