Advances in technology and in our understanding of illness and disease together with an expanded workforce and greater resources will allow us to provide more services to a higher quality.

For too long nurses have been undervalued, restricted in what they could do, with too few career opportunities in clinical practice. For far too long, nurses have endured a pay system that has held them back - both professionally as well as financially.

Our objective must therefore be to ensure EU better regulation contributes towards delivering a modern European Union which relentlessly focuses on building a dynamic and innovative economy equipped to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

But we need to show that the EU can modernise itself, can adapt to the needs of its citizens, can take their views into account. That will be our ambition for the UK Presidency.

Prevention is one of the few known ways to reduce demand for health and aged care services.

I'll exercise in spurts, usually inspired by a dress that I have to fit into. But once that gown is squeezed into, if I continue to exercise, I get sick or I pull my back. For some reason my body literally rejects exercise.

Exercise is key, of course, and people wrongly think you have to spend hours a day in the gym. Actually, you don't. All you need is simple equipment, and you can train in your living room.

The idea that there is one kind of African is, of course, ridiculous. Sometimes African entrepreneurs want to kill you because you are saying public health is the priority, not roads. Of course they are right to press for that issue, but so are we right, I believe, to argue, for example, that millions of children could and should be vaccinated.