Advances in drugs and medical technology have in many ways shaped the development of the NHS in its 50 years, in part leading to spiralling costs of care. Health Reporter Mike Waites looks at some of the achievements.

Patients visiting Bradford Royal Infirmary for the first time in 50 years might well find much of the layout familiar.

But as soon as they were treated they would discover techniques and medicines which were unimaginable at the dawn of the National Health Service. In particular, a massive range of antibiotic drugs and vaccines have been developed which have substantially reduced the number and seriousness of many diseases common in Bradford in the post-war years.

Of course, major advancements in treating certain diseases - notably cancer - are still to be made although one of the most outstanding breakthroughs in any field followed pioneering work at Bradford Royal Infirmary with the announcement in 1959 of the success of chemotherapy in treating cancer patients.

Some of the greatest strides have been achieved in imaging which has enabled doctors to make earlier diagnoses and reduce the need for operations although huge investment is usually needed to buy the expensive technology. Bradford has lagged behind many other hospitals without easy access to the latest development in the field - a £1million Magnetic Resonance Imaging scanner, for which a public appeal was launched last year. Head of radiology Dr Roger Lowe said there were few other branches in medicine which had advanced so far or so fast over the last 50 years. The hi-tech facilities available today were very different to the x-ray department of 1948 when only plain x-rays and barium examinations were available.

"Today we have a much wider range of tools we can use to image the body and so find out what is wrong," he said. "Through the application of new technologies, particularly computing, we can use ultrasound, angiography, CT and Magnetic Resonance Imaging to locate and characterise disease with unprecedented accuracy to allow more patients to be treated and cured than ever before."

Twenty years ago unblocking arteries would have required a major operation and as much as several weeks in hospital but development of techniques using keyhole surgery meant patients could be back at home in 24 hours.

Dr Lowe said the use of CT imaging developed in the last 20 years had enabled doctors to look inside the body in detail and had revolutionised the investigation of diseases of the nervous system, lungs and tumours.

Bradford's first CT scanner was replaced at Bradford Royal Infirmary in 1994 with an updated version and it was hoped to install another machine at St Luke's Hospital later this year.

MRI is the latest addition to the armoury of the radiologist. Unlike x-ray and CT scanning it has no radiation side-effects and can be carried out again and again on the same patient.

Cancer, strokes, brain and nervous system disorders as well as damaged joints are among conditions it can detect.

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