Thank you Vivienne.

Not so long ago the length of time that people had to wait for life enhancing and even life saving operations was something that shamed our country and threatened to destroy public confidence in the NHS.

People not only waited in pain for 18 months, even two years for hip and knee replacements, but even died because heart by-pass surgery couldn’t be offered quickly enough.

Two years before the previous Government left office its “Patients Charter” promised treatment within 18 months of being put on a waiting list. Not even that or anything close to it was achieved.

When we, in response to public anger and out of a desire to rescue the reputation of the NHS announced the 18 week target, we were told it couldn’t be done, the service would never deliver it.

Four years on and four months early, you are within a whisker of doing so. Let no-one ever belittle or detract from this remarkable achievement.

There are those who have opposed this target claiming it distorts clinical priorities. There are others who now say they oppose all targets and would abandon them all – including this one. And we can and are abandoning cental targets as the NHS has improved.

However, I know from talking to staff at every level on the ground that without the target, without the investment, without the discipline, focus, team work and learning from each other – this would never have been achieved.

Today’s figures show the NHS treated over a million people in July. 89.9% of admitted patients and 95% of non-admitted patients were treated within 18 weeks.

There are still some hospitals and PCTs and some specialties where we can and need to do better.

We know where they are and they will need to redouble their efforts over the coming weeks to avoid letting the rest of the NHS down.

The Department and NHS at the centre are providing practical help and advice. The money is there. We have brought together health care professionals from across the country to redesign the patient’s journey.

But we can only do so much from the centre. This is a commissioner led target. It’s the commissioner’s responsibility to do what ever is necessary to make sure that all of their patients are treated within 18 weeks.

There will be no new national target for waiting times, though 18 weeks is likely to be enshrined in the NHS constitution. But as we push power to Primary Care Trusts - and they commission the high quality, patient focussed services their communities need - meeting and beating the 18-weeks target will be a natural component of everything they do. Some regions, like my own in the South West, have already set their own more ambitious targets.

I have just come back from the Labour Party conference, where, among other things we celebrated the achievement of another target we were told could not be met – that on MRSA.

Mary Turner, a dinner lady, veteran Unison activist and the chair of our policy commission on health announced to the session for delegates and health ministers that whereas three years ago there had been several hundred critical resolutions on health this year there were just three. “So you must be doing something right:” In fact, the most heated and lively debates were on top up payments. It is an indication of how far the NHS has come that the hot topic of the conference fringes was the issue of private payments for cancer drugs at a time when what you have achieved on waiting means there is scant incentive for people to go private for their operations.

So many congratulations. Please pass on our and the public’s thanks to your colleagues who are helping make this happen and let’s make sure we achieve this historic milestone and give everyone yet another reason to celebrate the NHS in its 60th birthyear.