The NHS celebrates its 60th Birthday on 5 July.

It's an ideal occasion to take time to say thank you to the wonderful staff who look after Britain’s families when they need care and attention.

It's a chance to reflect on a founding principle of our NHS: high-quality healthcare, free at the point of delivery. It’s a principle and a delivery system that is admired the world over. It's a principle that reassures us all, that when we or our families need it, the NHS is there for us.

It’s also an opportunity to look at all that the NHS does and see how it can better serve our needs; the theme of Lord Darzi’s NHS Review and the Primary and Community Care Strategy, both published this week.

Heath care should be there when we need it. By making a wider range of services available in our local community, from diagnostic services and specialist clinics for conditions such as diabetes and asthma, to community pharmacies offering treatment for minor ailments and community physiotherapy clinics, the NHS becomes more personalised, more convenient.

Now this is not instead of using a local GPs surgery. By strengthening the role of GPs, our family doctors can work with other clinicians and local organisations to make sure we get the right services, in the right place and at the right time to meet our individual needs. We should always feel that the system is connected and working for us.

Would you agree?