Blair's cancer test promise

Tony Blair today promised faster diagnosis for 10,000 women with breast cancer as the parties went head to head on health.

By 2008, all women suspected of having the disease will see a specialist within a new deadline of two weeks.

Some 1.4 million women annually are screened for the disease - the most widespread cancer in women - and most are already diagnosed within a fortnight.

The new pledge will help the one in 50 or so who are deemed by their doctors to be low-risk and have to wait for up to 17 weeks to find out if they are clear or not. Of these, some 10,000 women turn out to have the disease.

Health Secretary John Reid said: "If a doctor refers you to a specialist with breast cancer it is a worrying time - regardless of whether they refer you as an urgent or non-urgent referral.

"I've listened to women tell me that the wait is like putting your life on hold, waiting to get the certainty they need to confront their fears and put an end to the distress of their family and friends."

Jeremy Hughes, Breakthrough Breast Cancer's chief executive, said: "This commitment gives light at the end of the tunnel to the tens of thousands of women

and their families who are left in the dark whilst they wait up to an agonising 17 weeks to learn the devastating news that they have breast cancer.

"Breakthrough has been calling for action on this issue for more than a year. On behalf of all those affected by breast cancer, Breakthrough welcomes this important commitment from the Labour Party."

Both the main parties were campaigning on NHS issues today as a raft of new polls claimed Labour was on course to win a third term by another landslide.

Michael Howard unveiled plans for five new children's hospitals in the regions and stepped up the Tory campaign on the MRSA superbug.

Health trusts in Leeds, Nottingham, Derby, Cambridge

and Southampton would be invited to bid to develop children's hospitals alongside established acute hospitals.

Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley said it was part of a ?300 million review of paediatric services. It aims to build on the Kennedy report four years ago into the failings of cardiac surgery at the Royal Bristol Infirmary which, Mr Lansley said, the Government had failed to implement.

He said the children's hospitals would be at the heart of a new NHS plan to integrate community services for children and specialist units.

Mr Lansley accused Labour of doing nothing about a warning from the Royal College of Surgeons that the NHS faces a major shortage of paediatricsurgeons. He also attacked an 18 per cent cut in paediatric intensive care beds.

The clash comes as a report identifies dirty hospitals and poor information about treatment as patients' top NHS concerns. The Picker Institute report said the number of patients saying their wards were clean had fallen from 56 to 54 per cent in the past year.