The NHS comes from the people.

It exists to improve our health and wellbeing, supporting us to keep psychologically and physically well, to improve when we are ill and, when we can not fully recover, to remain as well as we can to the end of our lives. It operates at the limitations of science - bringing the highest levels of human knowledge and skill to save lives and enhance health. It touches our lives at times of fundamental human requirement, when care and empathy are what matter most.

The NHS is established on a typical set of principles and values that bind together the neighborhoods and people it serves - clients and public - and the staff 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 staff are entitled, and pledges which the NHS is devoted to achieve, together with obligations, which the general public, clients and staff owe to one another to guarantee that the NHS runs fairly and efficiently. The Secretary of State for Health, all NHS bodies, personal and voluntary sector service providers supplying NHS services, and local authorities in the exercise of their public health functions are required by law to appraise this Constitution in their choices and actions. References in this document to the NHS and NHS services include regional authority public health services, but references to NHS bodies do not consist of regional authorities. Where there are differences of information these are described in the Handbook to the Constitution.

The Constitution will be renewed every 10 years, with the involvement of the general public, patients and personnel. It is accompanied by the Handbook to the NHS Constitution, to be renewed a minimum of every 3 years, setting out current assistance on the rights, promises, tasks and duties established by the Constitution. These requirements for renewal are lawfully binding. They guarantee that the principles and values which underpin the NHS go through regular evaluation and re-commitment