A £2.5bn “time to care” fund capable of supporting 20,000 more nurses, 8,000 more GPs, 5,000 more care workers and 3,000 more midwives by 2020 has been unveiled as the centrepiece of Ed Miliband’s speech to Labour conference promising to bring Britain back together.

Labour plans to find the cash through a levy on tobacco companies, a £1.1bn clampdown on tax avoidance including by hedge funds and a mansion tax on houses valued at more than £2m.

Miliband, hoping defence of the NHS can take him over the election line next May, balances the promise of extra cash with a commitment that “we are going to have to transform the way the NHS works in the year ahead”.

His speech promises to introduce a truly integrated service for physical health, mental health and care for the elderly, a potentially far-reaching but money-saving reorganisation.

He says: “The NHS is sliding backwards under this government. They are privatising and fragmenting it. Just think what it would be like after five more years of this government. It is not safe in their hands. We built the NHS, we saved the NHS, we will repeal the Health and Social Care Act, and we will transform the NHS for the future.”

“We will raise £1bn from tax avoidance including by closing the loopholes for the hedge funds. We will use the proceeds from a tax on houses worth over £2m and we will raise revenue from the tobacco companies who make soaring profits on the back of ill health.”

He argues: “The NHS is currently creaking. One in four people wait a week or more for a GP appointment. We have seen the scandal of care visits restricted to just 15 minutes for the elderly. It is time to care about the NHS so that doctors, nurses, care workers, midwives are able to spend proper time with us – and not to be rushed off their feet.”

Miliband says the package of tax avoidance will raise £1.1bn, the fees for tobacco firms a further £150m annually and the mansion tax around £1.4bn.

It is estimated there are 97,000 properties worth over £2m, an increase of 36,000 since 2009. Nearly 80% are in London. The Tories are certain to challenge the validity of the figures.

The tax avoidance measures include:

• £600m raised through stopping hedge funds avoiding paying tax on shares, mainly by using investment banks to purchase the shares even if they enjoy the economic benefit of the shares.

• Closing the Eurobonds loophole used by some firms to move profits out of the UK and avoid corporation tax.

• Preventing so called umbrella companies being used by firms to avoid tax and national insurance by exploiting expenses rules.

Labour said the plan to impose fees on tobacco firms is modelled on a scheme introduced in the US in 2009 so that firms make a larger contribution towards the costs of tackling tobacco-related illness. As in the US, the fee for individual firms will be based on their market share, a technique that makes it more difficult to pass the costs onto the consumer.

The promise to save the NHS was one of six long-term goals in the speech in which he promises change can be achieved if the country comes together rather than being left on their own as they had by the Tories.

In a long passage he tries to address the sense of despair with politics among voters represented by the votes in Scottish referendum and the rise of Ukip.

He said: “Can anyone build a better future for the working people of Britain?’ That is the general election question.

“So many people have lost faith in the future. I’ve met young people who should have the brightest of futures who tell me their generation is falling into a black hole. People in England who think all politics is rubbish.

“People in Scotland who wanted to leave our country because they felt they had nothing left to lose.

“Our task is to restore people’s faith in the future. But the way to do it is not to break up our country. It is to break with the old way of doing things, break with the past.

“I’m not talking about changing a policy, or simply a different programme. But something that is bigger: transforming the idea, the ethic, of how our country is run.

“Strip away all of the sound and fury and what people across England, Scotland and Wales, across every part of the UK, are saying - that this country doesn’t care about me. Politics doesn’t listen. The economy doesn’t work. And they are not wrong. They are right. But this Labour party has a plan to put it right.

“For Labour, this election is about you. You have made the sacrifices, you have taken home lower wages year after year, you have paid higher taxes, you have seen your energy bills rise, you have seen your NHS decline, you know this country doesn’t work for you.

“We can build that better future for you and your family, wherever you live in the United Kingdom, and this speech is about Labour’s plan to do it: Labour’s plan for Britain’s future.

“I want to set out six national goals, not just for one year or one term of office, but a plan for the next 10 years: Britain 2025.”

The goals are:

• Ensuring more apprentices.

• Help for the self employed as part of a move to restore the link between growth and wages.

• Restoring the dream of home ownership by doubling the number of first-time buyers.

• Halving the number of people on low pay.

• Changing the lives of over 2 million people.

• Creating 1 million more high-tech jobs by securing the UK’s position as is a world leader in green industries.

Miliband says the commitment to relink growth and earnings requires Labour to use its historic values “to fight for the people in the frontline of the modern workforce - the growing army of our self-employed, 5 million working people, so often the most entrepreneurial, go-getting people in our country.

“They don’t want special treatment. But they do deserve a fair shot: two thirds have no pension, one in five is stopped from getting a mortgage: it is time to end this modern injustice. The next Labour government will ensure the self-employed are not locked out of the benefits that come from going out to work.”

He also calls for more action to combat climate change saying: “Under this government, Britain lags behind Germany, Japan, the United States and even India and China for low-carbon, green technologies and services. So many of our brilliant businesses are desperate to play their part in creating their jobs of the future but they just can’t do it unless government does its bit. With our plan, we will.

“It is incredibly important to our economy today. And it is the most important thing I can do in politics for the future of my kids and their generation.”

He also promises to tackle the scourge of law saying the number of workers on low pay now stands at over 5 million – a fifth of all employees – with half of all people in poverty now living in working households. The proportion of UK workers who are low paid is one of the worst in the developed world – 25th out of a league table of 30 OECD countries.

The Tories will criticise Labour’s health plans by pointing to the failings of the NHS in Labour run Wales, as well as other failings such as Staffordshire.

Simon Gillespie, chief executive of the British Heart Foundation, welcomed the announcement on health and tobacco levy saying: “Tobacco is a killer product. Every day more and more people are tempted into taking up this deadly addiction at a cost to their health and the nation’s health service.

“The tobacco industry must pay for their profiteering and the terrible burden these lethal products place on people’s heart health. The BHF welcomes Labour’s commitment to making this happen and holding manufacturers to account.”

Criticising the mansion tax, Susan Emmett, director of residential research at Savills, said: ”The London property market has already had to absorb a fair amount of extra taxation over the last couple of years since the idea of mansion tax first emerged.

“Adding to that burden would disrupt the market at a time when London house price growth is already cooling. It would also impact on the receipts from other property taxes so the overall gains may not be a large as Labour expects.

“We think changing the council tax system would help level the playing field without putting a spanner in the works of the property market.”