Each day in England, around 1500 patients are being looked after in Intensive Care Units for life-threatening conditions. (Dept of Health)

Each year, over 13 million people attend NHS Accident & Emergency Units in England (at least 1 in 4 of the population).

Over 43 million people attend an NHS Out-Patient Department in England each year.

University College Hospital in London has 218 nurses per 100 beds, the highest in the country.

St Mary’s Hospital in London has the highest number of doctors per 100 beds in England with four doctors for every five patient beds.

Basingstoke Hospital has the lowest number of doctors per 100 beds in the NHS with only one doctor per five beds.

The North Lincolnshire and Goole Hospitals had only 67 nurses per 100 beds in 2001, the lowest in the country. Aintree Hospital and Bromley Hospital had 81 nurses per 100 beds.

The hospital with the highest mortality rate in the country (126) in 2001 was Walsall Hospital whilst Barts and the London Hospital had the lowest mortality rate (60).

British women aged between 50 and 60 are four times more likely to die of heart disease than of breast cancer.

About 20 out of 1000 women living in Britain will develop cancer between the ages of 50 and 60 but if they are taking Hormone Replacement Therapy, the incidence almost doubles to 38 per 1000.

An estimated six million foetuses have been aborted in the UK since the 1967 Abortion Act and around one million embryos have been discarded or destroyed in the process of infertility treatment since the 1990 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act.

In 2001 there were 170 million underweight children in the world of whom 3 million died from weight-related illnesses. (WHO)

At the same time, there were over 1 billion overweight people in the world of whom 300 million were classified as “clinically-obese”

Half a million people in North America and Europe are expected to die this year from obesity-related illnesses.

Life expectancy at birth for girls in the UK is nearly 80 years whilst for girls born in Afghanistan it is 42 years and in Sierra Leone it is only 32 years.

There are estimated to be over 5 million premature deaths per year worldwide as a result of tobacco consumption

Ninety nine per cent of HIV/Aids infection in Africa is thought to be caused by unsafe sex. (WHO Report)

Over 1.7 million people die each year as a result of poor sanitation or unsafe water supplies.

The first hospital was built by St Basil of Ceasarea in Cappadocia in AD 370.

Anaesthetics in the form of nepenthe were recorded by Homer as being used in surgery to reduce pain.

Spectacles were first used in the thirteenth century.