The NHS has actually been marking its 70th anniversary, and the nationwide dispute this has actually unleashed has centred on three huge facts. 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 financing, 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 starting point. So to prosper, 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 should speed up the redesign of client care to future-proof the NHS for the decade ahead.