• The NHS today is the fastest growing health service in any major country in Europe. Spending on the NHS is growing at an average of 7.5 % in real terms each year until 2008, funded by the 1% increase in National Insurance. By 2008 we will have doubled UK spending on health compared to the expenditure levels in 1997.

• We now have 19,300 more doctors and 77,500 more nurses in the NHS. There are now more doctors and nurses working in the NHS than at any time in the past 15 years.

• Every single waiting time and waiting list national indicator is now more positive than in 1997 and the average waiting time for an operation has now fallen to just 2.9 months.

• The number of hospital beds is now increasing for the first time in 30 years. In the last four years Labour has created 7,000 new acute beds.

• In Harlow the Government has funded an NHS Walk-in-Centre so that patients can see a nurse immediately, seven days a week.

• A new 22 bed unit was built at Princess Alexandra Hospital in 2003 and more recently a £16 million 82 bed extension was opened. This increased capacity means more patients can be seen and waiting lists tackled. A further £2.7 million has been awarded for a Diagnostic Treatment Centre consisting initially of two day surgery theatres and an ophthalmology unit. The Maternity Unit at PAH has also been modernised at a cost of £890,000.