The NHS belongs to individuals.

It is there to enhance our health and health and wellbeing, supporting us to keep mentally and physically well, to get better when we are ill and, when we can not totally recover, to stay as well as we can to the end of our lives. It operates at the limits of science - bringing the highest levels of human knowledge and skill to save lives and improve health. It touches our lives at times of fundamental human requirement, when care and compassion are what matter most.

The NHS is established on a common set of principles and worths that bind together the communities and individuals it serves - patients 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 clients, public and personnel are entitled, and pledges which the NHS is dedicated to accomplish, together with duties, which the public, clients and staff owe to one another to ensure that the NHS operates relatively and successfully. The Secretary of State for Health, all NHS bodies, personal and voluntary sector companies supplying NHS services, and regional authorities in the workout 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 consist of local authority public health services, however referrals to NHS bodies do not consist of local authorities. Where there are distinctions of detail these are discussed in the Handbook to the Constitution.

The Constitution will be renewed every ten years, with the involvement of the general public, patients and personnel. It is accompanied by the Handbook to the NHS Constitution, to be restored a minimum of every 3 years, setting out current assistance on the rights, pledges, tasks and obligations developed by the Constitution. These requirements for renewal are lawfully binding. They ensure that the concepts and worths which underpin the NHS are subject to regular evaluation and re-commitment