The National Health Service is there for you throughout your life, from the day you are born to your final days. It is something to be valued, protected and improved, and that is what David Cameron and the Conservatives have done in this parliament. Our absolute commitment to the NHS is supported by a strong economy so that it’s there, free at the point of use, for the future, able to cope with an ageing population, and able to offer the best healthcare in the world.

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That’s why we have a plan for the NHS, backed up by the funding it needs. We have made difficult decisions elsewhere in order to increase spending on the NHS in real terms every year. We have also achieved billions of pounds in efficiency savings, all of which went straight back into the frontline. The result is fewer managers and thousands more doctors and nurses to treat record numbers of people, in better hospitals, with the newest drugs and treatments.

But new treatments and an ageing population with increasingly complex needs are creating rising pressures on the system. The good news is that we have empowered the NHS to determine its own answers, and under the leadership of its new chief executive, Simon Stevens, the healthcare community has reached an amazing degree of consensus on the way forward. The NHS’s own plan, the Five Year Forward View, sets out a vision for transforming the way healthcare is delivered, breaking down barriers between services so patients receive more joined-up care. Building on our £5.3bn Better Care Fund, which started this month, areas such as Greater Manchester will show the way by pooling budgets, and 29 vanguard sites will adopt new ways of working that integrate services and move them closer to people’s homes.

We back the NHS’s plan, but there’s no point having a plan without the funding to deliver it, so today we commit to deliver what the NHS needs. The Five Year Forward View sets out a projected gap between costs and resources of up to £30bn by the year 2020-21. As the plan says, the majority of this gap, £22bn, can be made up through efficiency and reform, as well as improvements in public health and prevention that will keep people healthier for longer. The NHS will do its part, and we will do ours. So I can confirm that in the Conservative manifesto next week we will commit to a minimum real-terms increase in NHS funding of £8bn in the next five years.

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That is a minimum of £8bn over and above the £2bn down payment that I announced in the autumn statement last year. We’ve funded the NHS through the last five years; today we commit to fund it for the next five years.

We can make this commitment because we’ve got the track record and a plan to grow our economy. New figures, confirmed by the Treasury, show that in the five years from 2010-11 to 2015-16 we are set to deliver a real-terms increase of £7.3bn. And we have done that at the same time as halving the deficit as a share of GDP and cutting income tax for 26 million people. In the next parliament we will continue with the same balanced approach.

With the funding and reforms that our NHS needs we can offer real improvements to the services people depend on, like guaranteeing over-75s same-day access to a GP. By supporting the most vulnerable we can improve their lives and ease the pressures on the NHS by reducing the number of unnecessary and often distressing visits to A&E. We can also guarantee that by 2020 everyone in the country will be able to access a GP at weekends and evenings. The NHS will finally abandon paper records, and the NHS and social care systems will work together.

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When this government took office in 2010, with the biggest budget deficit in Britain’s peacetime history, other parties urged us to cut spending on the NHS. The then Labour health secretary, Andy Burnham, said it would be “irresponsible” to protect health spending. Sadly the Labour party in Wales took his advice and cut the NHS budget, betraying the people of Wales. For the Lib Dems, Vince Cable argued consistently against ringfencing the NHS, a position he has advocated throughout this parliament. We rejected those arguments, and we reject them again.

Those who urged us to cut the NHS also fail to understand the most important thing of all – all of this is only possible because of a strong economy. Harm the economy with higher taxes and higher debts, and not only do you put millions of jobs at risk: you undermine the NHS and all the vital public services that a strong economy pays for. Countries such has Portugal and Greece lost control of their economies, and each cut their health budgets by over 10%.

Decisions about spending go to the heart of our politics because they reflect our values. We in the Conservative party are in no doubt about our approach: the NHS is something precious. We value it for the security it provides to everyone in our country, and we will always give it the resources it needs.