At the recent launch of the Government's 10-Year Health Plan for England I wisely decided not to tell Sally Warren, Department of Health and Social Care director general for the plan and its lead author, what was on the tip of my tongue: ‘Well, that's the easy part over.'

But it is true. The plan promises to do several things the NHS committed to for decades but failed to accomplish. This time a focus on prevention, a shift of resources from hospitals to care closer to home and effective take-up of technological possibilities must be accomplished at fast pace with limited revenue and even more constrained capital budgets.