The NHS has actually been marking its 70th anniversary, and the nationwide dispute this has unleashed has centred on three huge facts. There's been pride in our Health Service's enduring success, and in the shared social dedication it represents. There's been concern - about funding, staffing, increasing inequalities and pressures from a growing and ageing population. But there's likewise been optimism - about the possibilities for continuing medical advance and better results of care.

In looking ahead to the Health Service's 80th birthday, this NHS Long Term Plan takes all three of these realities as its starting point. So to succeed, we need to keep all that's excellent about our health service and its place in our national life. But we must take on head-on the pressures our personnel face, while making our additional funding go as far as possible. And as we do so, we need to speed up the redesign of client care to future-proof the NHS for the decade ahead. This Plan sets out how we will do that. We are now able to because:

- first, we now have a secure and better funding course for the NHS, balancing 3.4% a year over the next 5 years, compared with 2% over the past 5 years