The NHS has actually been marking its 70th anniversary, and the nationwide dispute this has actually unleashed has actually centred on three huge facts. There's been pride in our Health Service's long-lasting success, and in the shared social commitment it represents. There's been issue - 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 much better outcomes of care.

In expecting the Health Service's 80th birthday, this NHS Long Term Plan takes all three of these realities as its beginning point. So to be successful, we should keep all that's great about our health service and its place in our national life. But we must take on head-on the pressures our staff face, while making our additional funding reach possible. And as we do so, we need to accelerate 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:

- initially, we now have a safe and secure and improved funding path for the NHS, balancing 3.4% a year over the next five years, compared with 2% over the past five years