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Legislation

Mothers with children in waiting room

This section details all publications about primary and secondary legislation relating to the Department of Health, the National Health Service and social care in England.

Acts and Bills

Useful information relating to DH about UK Acts of Parliament (public and local) and their explanatory and guidance notes.

Impact assessments

Structured documents published with regulatory proposals, new legislation and policy implementation to assist informed public debate.

Health assessments

The consideration of health impact assessment (HIA) in the Government’s impact assessment process is mandatory. This means that health and wellbeing are designed into national policy.

Directions from the Secretary of State

Instructions issued by the Secretary of State (or in some cases Strategic Health Authorities) to other NHS bodies under powers in NHS legislation.

Statutory instruments

Secondary legislation that consists of an order, regulations, rules or a scheme and are made under powers conferred by primary legislation. The authoritative text of statutory instruments (SIs) is published on the website of the Office for Public Sector Information, where it is indexed by the year and number of issue.

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