The National Health Service (NHS) celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2023. Its founding principles of care for all, free at point of need, funded from general taxation, a source of British pride. However the public has growing concerns about the standard of care and is pessimistic about the future. The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan (LTWP), published in June 2023, starts by modelling and acknowledging the scale of the staffing challenge. It goes on to set out an ambitious vision for the English health workforce: many more staff, trained closer to the communities they serve, working in more diverse, multidisciplinary teams, to deliver patient-centred, technology-enabled care. Initial responses to LTWP have focused on the commitment to ramping up training, doubling medical school places from 7,500 to 15,000 students per year (by 2031) and increasing nursing, midwifery and allied health training places by 80% to 72,4001 (by 2031). Universities were amongst many voices across education, health and politics asking for a workforce strategy; they helped shape it, welcomed its launch and will be fundamental to its delivery. This is not to say that university leaders do not fully recognise the challenges involved in such a radical expansion and transformation of health education system capacity. This will not be achieved by business as usual. Universities are already working in close partnership with government, regulators and NHS leaders to identify and address the conditions that need to be in place for the LTWP to be successful. This position paper sets out some of those conditions. It builds on a series of national discussions between Universities UK and NHS England, including two roundtables leading up to the publication of the NHS LTWP and one in September 2023. [Partners in this position paper include the Medical Schools Council (MSC) and the Council of Deans of Health.]