The NHS comes from the people.

It is there to improve our health and health and wellbeing, supporting us to keep mentally and physically well, to improve when we are ill and, when we can not fully recover, to stay along with we can to the end of our lives. It works at the limits of science - bringing the greatest levels of human knowledge and skill to save lives and enhance health. It touches our lives at times of basic human need, when care and empathy are what matter most.

The NHS is founded on a typical set of principles and worths that bind together the communities and individuals it serves - clients and public - and the personnel who work for it.

This Constitution establishes the concepts and worths of the NHS in England. It sets out rights to which patients, public and staff are entitled, and pledges which the NHS is devoted to achieve, together with responsibilities, which the public, clients and personnel owe to one another to guarantee that the NHS runs relatively and successfully. The Secretary of State for Health, all NHS bodies, personal and voluntary sector providers supplying NHS services, and regional authorities in the exercise of their public health functions are needed by law to appraise this Constitution in their choices and actions. References in this file to the NHS and NHS services include local authority public health services, but references to NHS bodies do not include regional authorities. Where there are distinctions of detail these are described in the Handbook to the Constitution.

The Constitution will be renewed every 10 years, with the involvement of the general public, clients and personnel. It is accompanied by the Handbook to the NHS Constitution, to be renewed a minimum of every 3 years, setting out present assistance on the rights, promises, responsibilities and obligations developed by the Constitution. These requirements for renewal are legally binding. They guarantee that the principles and values which underpin the NHS go through routine review and re-commitment