The Conservatives are stressing their commitment to the NHS

Health spokesman Jonathan Morgan said he would "give clinicians the prescribing powers they require" at an estimated cost of up to �25m.

The party also announced plans to pilot nurse-led "walk-in health centres" and to reform mental health treatment.

It said the NHS was its "number one priority" for May's assembly elections.

KEY TORY HEALTH PLEDGES Better access to medicines Walk-in health centres Prompt treatment Cleaner hospitals Mental health reforms

Mr Morgan said: "We know the people of Wales want to see an NHS that delivers treatment when they need it in an efficient and timely manner.

"They know that in the last eight years of devolution the assembly government have not maximised the use of resources that they've put in."

He described making it easier for doctors and clinicians to prescribe drugs and treatments they believed would benefit their patients as "probably one of the greatest challenges facing the NHS in Wales today".

It follows last year's high profile row over the prescribing of the breast cancer drug Herceptin. The party says it was one of many examples of medicines not being used when there were clear benefits for patients from using them.

'National scandal'

Mr Morgan said he believed that reforming mental health services "could be the last great social reform for this country".

Nick Bourne believes efficiency savings can fund his plans

He said that if any other illness affecting between one in four and one in three people was such a low priority there would be a "national scandal and an outcry".

The Welsh Conservatives said that if they were in power in Cardiff Bay after 3 May they would pilot nurse-led walk-in health centres outside the Welsh capital.

Welsh Conservative leader Nick Bourne said the pilot would probably be in north Wales and the centres would then be rolled out across Wales.

He promised cleaner hospitals, a modernised ambulance service, full funding for the children's hospital and more use of private money to improve health facilities.

Efficiency savings

Mr Bourne said speeding up treatment and improving the nutrition of food served by public bodies such as hospitals, care homes and schools would "go through our manifesto like Tenby or Aberystwyth through a stick of rock".

He said asking every government department to achieve efficiency savings of one per cent would raise around �145m.