The NHS has been marking its 70th anniversary, and the nationwide argument this has actually let loose has actually centred on 3 huge realities. There's been pride in our Health Service's enduring success, and in the shared social dedication it represents. There's been issue - about financing, staffing, increasing inequalities and pressures from a growing and ageing population. But there's also been optimism - about the possibilities for continuing medical advance and better results of care.

In expecting the Health Service's 80th birthday, this NHS Long Term Plan takes all 3 of these truths as its starting point. So to prosper, we must keep all that's good about our health service and its location in our national life. But we should take on head-on the pressures our staff face, while making our extra funding reach possible. And as we do so, we need to speed up the redesign of patient care to future-proof the NHS for the years ahead. This Plan sets out how we will do that. We are now able to because:

- first, we now have a safe and better financing course for the NHS, balancing 3.4% a year over the next five years, compared to 2% over the past five years