The NHS has been marking its 70th anniversary, and the nationwide argument this has unleashed has centred on 3 huge realities. There's been pride in our Health Service's long-lasting success, and in the shared social dedication it represents. There's been issue - 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 much better results 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 prosper, we should keep all that's great about our health service and its place in our nationwide life. But we need to tackle head-on the pressures our staff face, while making our extra funding reach possible. And as we do so, we must 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:

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