King’s Speech

Baroness Nargund Excerpts

Wednesday 20th May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Nargund (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bailey, and I thank my noble friend the Minister for her excellent introductory speech earlier.

I have spent nearly 40 years working in the National Health Service. I have seen it at its best—compassionate, innovative and life-saving—and I have seen it when the system fails and when patients fall through gaps that should never exist. That is why I welcome the NHS modernisation Bill, part of a wider national mission to move healthcare from hospital to community, from analogue to digital and from treatment to prevention. I welcome the provision to give flexibility to integrated care boards for addressing local needs. It has the real potential to address the deep health inequalities that scar our society, but we must ensure that there will be no creation of a postcode lottery. I also welcome the abolition of NHS England and reducing bureaucracies.

At the heart of the Bill is its most transformative proposal: the single patient record. We should remember, first, that care is not simply an outcome on a spreadsheet; it is whether patients feel seen, heard and safe. NHS trusts use multiple electronic record systems that often cannot communicate with one another. Millions of patients are treated every year without clinicians having access to their full medical history. That is not just an outdated infrastructure; it is a risk of harm. As a doctor, I can tell you that this happens too often, and unequally. The most vulnerable in our society—those with mental health conditions or disabilities and those without any family at their bedside—are the most likely to fall through the gaps.

The single patient record offers the opportunity to change that fundamentally. It can fundamentally change patient experience and improve clinical outcomes, operational efficiency and financial performance. It can narrow the gap between those whose histories are known and those whose histories are not known. It is, at its core, a tool for equity. Above all, it means that patients are no longer carrying the burden of stitching together their own care.

I particularly welcome the decision to begin its implementation through maternity care. Too many maternity complaints involve failures in communication between services. The consequences can be and have been fatal. One report described a pregnant woman with bipolar disorder and a history of postpartum psychosis whose psychiatric history was not properly communicated between services. She did not receive the specialist care she needed and died by suicide during pregnancy. That was a preventable systems failure. A single patient record can prevent such tragedies.

We must also ensure that significant treatments, both NHS-funded and non-NHS funded, taking place in the independent sector, such as IVF and assisted conception, should be in the single patient record. It is essential to ensure continuity of care, protect patient safety and build a clearer national understanding of the complications and long-term outcomes of fertility treatments. We must not miss this opportunity. In this context, I declare that I am a board member of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. I ask the Minister for her support to make this happen.

The single patient record will save lives. In time, it will also save money by reducing complications, complaints and medico-legal costs. Other countries have already shown what is possible. In Denmark, linked health data has strengthened clinical care while driving world-leading research. Used responsibly, with the trust of the public and health professionals, this could position our country as a global leader in life sciences.

If implemented well, this Bill has the potential not simply to modernise our NHS but to humanise it and to create a system in which patients are truly known not as isolated episodes of care but as whole people—a system that reflects the founding principle of our NHS: that every person matters equally and deserves care that is joined up, dignified and humane. I look forward to contributing to the Bill when it arrives in your Lordships’ House.