Although health policy is devolved to the Welsh Assembly Government, it is an area many voters in Wales will take into account on 5 May.

Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru have all released their policies on four key areas of the health service.

Below is a comparison of what each party would do if it had

power.

Labour By 2009 no patient will wait longer than 26 weeks from GP referral to treatment. This wait will include all tests and necessary diagnostics. Labour is investing in more NHS capacity, including eight planned new hospitals and major developments in others. In the last month alone there has been a 41.3% reduction in the number of people waiting 18 months and over and a reduction of 31.5 % in people waiting 12 months or more.

Conservatives More hospital beds and allow patients to be treated in England or privately. Would utilise the spare capacity in English hospitals and in the private sector to treat backlog of waiting patients. Would introduce efficient bed management and discharge processes with a return to the matron as a ward manager so that the bed occupancy rates are brought below the critical figure of 85%.

Liberal Democrats A priority is cutting waiting times. Will offer diagnosis by the quickest practical route, public or private, so the NHS treatment can be provided more quickly. Will tackle delayed transfers of care - a contributory factor in increasing wait times - by encouraging a whole system approach among social services and local health boards to combat it.

Plaid Cymru Co-ordinated planning on an all-Wales level to ensure capacity is used sensibly, with patients being taken off waiting lists and into treatment where the capacity exists to treat them. Medical assessment units should be established in every hospital. 500 fully-staffed additional beds need to be provided in our NHS hospitals, including an increase of 50 additional intensive care beds.

Labour Twin-track approach to both improve NHS and promote healthy living. A priority for Labour is the prevention of illness and the promotion of better health. In Wales, Labour has pioneered a range of measures to improve health. We are backing this with record investment in health promotion and health improvement. More than �70m will be invested in this area by 2007-08, alongside measures such as legislation to ban smoking in public places. Labour will continue to reduce the price of prescriptions and they will be abolished altogether by 2007.

Conservatives Action to tackle sexually-transmitted infections. Clear public health TV campaign - young people need to know the risks.

Lib Dems Prevention of illness is as important as cure. Pollution in the air, water and food chain causes many illnesses. Will make sure chemicals are eliminated by ending production and use of unnecessary persistent bio-accumulative chemicals. Will promote walking and cycling. Children will be encouraged to walk to school and more cycle routes to be created for adults.

Plaid Cymru We would improve cycle and walking routes, encourage exercise and healthy diet and ensure NHS dental and optical checks. Will ensure that hospital resources are used only where they are the most appropriate and efficient way of responding to people's needs. At present, hospital beds and staff often have to stand in as substitutes for other forms of care and treatment.

Labour "Our investment means that there are now 5,000 more nurses and 350 more hospital doctors". The Labour Assembly Government will recruit 400 more doctors and 4,000 more nurses for the NHS over the next three years. To achieve this we will increase medical training places, including a new training school in north Wales. We also have to do more to retain existing staff and to attract staff to come back to work for the NHS. Our Welsh Dental Initiative is aimed at attracting more dentists into Wales and expanding access to NHS dental services. We are also making an additional �5.3m investment to improve access to modern dentistry services.

Conservatives The Conservative Party in Westminster has pledged to invest �34bn with Wales to benefit significantly. Money would be used to fill the 700 nurse vacancies in Wales, to stem the flow of dentists leaving the Welsh NHS and encourage more back into it.

Lib Dems Will recruit more staff (rather than use agency staff). Will provide a grant to newly-qualified health professionals to work in areas where there is a shortage of staff. Once established in positions of work, staff would be more likely to be retained by the NHS in Wales. Improve access to dental services and introduce more salaried NHS dentists.

Plaid Cymru We have argued for employing new staff, campaigned for a second medical school and opposed cuts in new courses for nurses and therapists. We would improve working conditions in order to ensure retention of nurses and train more. We would create a culture where dentists who have retired early could return to NHS part time or full time and allow dentists who have left the NHS to return part time or full time. We are in favour of a flexible approach which will enable us to offer dental care on the NHS to everyone in Wales who wants NHS cover.

Labour Out of hours services are now provided by local health boards either through local GP co-ops or commercial providers. This change did lead to some turbulence in the system and some localised problems. The present picture is one of improving performance. Both response times to calls and services overall are improving. We are confident our reforms are right and will lead to local health services for patients.

Conservatives Would make greater use of walk-in centres and provide more money for front line health services, allowing local health boards to deliver more effective out-of-hours cover.

Lib Dems Better out-of-hours services and ambulance triaging services. Would link new walk-in health centres to out-of-hours services and put in place an ambulance triaging system. This would mean ambulances can take patients to the most appropriate treatment facility, instead of A&E departments.

Plaid Cymru We would encourage the use of health trusts to cover out-of-hours services as they are in the best position to ensure co-ordinated services. In areas not directly covered by trusts we would want to see the service directly controlled by local health boards using a range of health professionals. Walk-in-centres should be open from 6am to 10pm. This could reduce the pressure as could minor injury units in community hospitals. We would have a presumption against private companies without a track record in health care provision.