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Labour's 100-Day Plan To Fix Health Service

A 100-day plan to rescue the health service has been unveiled by Labour leader Ed Miliband.

Labour has pledgeed an "emergency recruitment drive" to get 1,000 extra nurses into training this year if the party wins the General Election.

The move would be the first instalment of Labour's plan to recruit 20,000 more nurses by 2020.

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A tobacco levy and mansion tax would be in their first Budget, raising some revenue in 2015/16 and £2.5bn a year from 2016/17.

Labour would also introduce winter planning with GPs stationed in all A&E departments and more clinically-trained NHS 111 staff.

Mr Miliband said: "This plan has to start immediately, straightaway, with real money, right now.

"So in our first 100 days, in our first Budget, our first year in office, first things first: we'll save the NHS, getting extra resources into the NHS right from the very start.

"The Tories have caused a staffing crisis.

"Two thirds of nurses say patients are missing out on care because there just aren't enough nurses on the wards and today we heard news that one in three NHS Trusts were investigated last year because of concerns over safe staffing."

Mr Miliband was referring to a Freedom of Information Request to the Trust Development Authority which found that 26 NHS Trusts - nearly one in three - were reviewed between May and September last year because of concerns about staffing levels.

However unlike the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives, Labour is the only party refusing to pledge £8bn of additional NHS funding by 2020.

The King's Fund, a leading healthcare think tank, has warned this is a "significant gap at the heart of its plans".

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