The NHS has actually been marking its 70th anniversary, and the national dispute this has unleashed has centred on three big truths. 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 also 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 3 of these realities as its starting point. So to prosper, we need to keep all that's good about our health service and its place in our nationwide life. But we should take on head-on the pressures our staff face, while making our extra financing 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 protected and better financing course for the NHS, averaging 3.4% a year over the next 5 years, compared to 2% over the previous five years