The NHS turns 65 today and to celebrate we're taking a look at how the health service has evolved over the years.

First established on July 5, 1948, the NHS promised cradle to grave care, free for everyone, rich or poor.

Until then Brits had to rely on insurance policies to pay for their health care as most could not earn enough to pay medical bills.

The Labour Government had promised a raft of welfare measures - including the NHS - when it was elected in 1945.

Health Minister Aneurin Bevan was put in charge of introducing the new service, which was based on need, not ability to pay.

It is now the world’s largest publicly funded health service and has helped save millions of lives.

From the first vaccination programmes in the 1950s to today's ground-breaking developments in robotic heart surgery, these 65 interesting facts illustrate some of the landmark changes, which have helped shape the NHS into what it is today.

1. The NHS is one of the largest employers in the world, along with the Chinese People's Liberation Army, the Indian railways and the Wal-Mart supermarket chain.

2. The NHS in England and Wales employs around 1.3 million people. This is approximately one in 23 of the working population.

3. Around 77% of today's NHS workforce is female.

4. There are more than 100 volunteering roles within health and social care.

5. Nurses make up the largest part of the NHS workforce, at just under 30%.

6. Staff across the NHS are in contact with more than 1.5 million patients and their families every day.

7. Approximately 170,000 people (the capacity of the Glastonbury music festival) go for an eyesight test each week.

8. In 2005/06 the NHS helped to deliver around 16,000 babies at home.

9. Almost a quarter of all babies born in 2005/06 were delivered by caesarean section.

10. Each month, 23 million people (more than three times the population of London) visit their GP surgery or practice nurse.

11. In a typical week, 1.4 million people will receive help in their home from the NHS.

12. Full-time GPs treat an average of 255 patients a week.

13. NHS chiropodists inspect more than 150,000 pairs of feet every week.

14. Seventy-five per cent of women aged 53 to 64 in England are screened for breast cancer at least once every three years.

15. NHS Direct receives around 20 calls a minute. More than a million people called NHS Direct over the 2007 Christmas period.

16. The NHS Ambulance Service received 6.3 million emergency calls in 2005/06, which is roughly 360 an hour

17. Community pharmacies dispensed 745 million prescription items in 2006/07

18. NHS ambulances make over 50,000 emergency journeys each week

19. There are now around 90 NHS walk-in centres, offering convenient access to services, including treatment for minor illnesses and injuries

20. The oldest person in the world to have a hip replacement was a 101-year-old lady who was treated at Good Hope Hospital in the West Midlands. More than 89,000 hip replacement operations were carried out in 2006/07.

21. When 13-year-old Sylvia Diggery (nee Beckingham) was admitted to a Manchester hospital with a liver condition in 1948, she became the first patient to be treated by the NHS.

22. Britain's first sextuplets were born to Sheila Thorn at Birmingham Maternity Hospital in 1968.

23. There was nothing ordinary about the birth in Oldham of Louise Joy Brown on July 25 1978. She was the world's first test-tube baby. In vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment is now common and since then, more than a million test tube babies have been born worldwide.

24. The first heart transplant in the UK took place on May 3 1968 at the National Heart Hospital in Marylebone, London. By December 2007, 5,328 heart transplants had been carried out in the UK.

25. NHS Direct was first launched in 1998. It now handles 20,000 calls a day, that's around eight million calls a year.

26. The man in charge of introducing the NHS was Health Minister Aneurin Bevan. Launching the service on July 5 1948.

27. There are more than 530 NHS trusts in England. The trusts include: Acute trusts, Primary Care trusts, Mental Health trusts, Ambulance trusts and Care trusts.

28. The first NHS trusts were established in 1991.

29. In December 1942 Sir William Beveridge's report, Social Insurance and Allied Services, proposed major changes to create the foundations for a welfare system and, in its support, a national health service. The NHS was born.

30. The National Health Service Act was published in 1946.

31. Charges for prescriptions, dental treatments and spectacles came into force in 1952. Prescription charges were abolished in 1965 and remained free until June 1968, when the charges were reintroduced.

32. The first UK kidney transplant took place at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary on October 30 1960 and involved a set of 49-year-old identical twins.

33. Polio and Diptheria vaccines were introduced in 1958, prior to that cases of polio could climb as high as 8,000 in epidemic years, with cases of diphtheria as high as 70,000, leading to 5,000 deaths.

34. Initially, the contraceptive pill was only available to married women when it was introduced in 1961. Six years later, laws were relaxed and by 1967 one million women were taking it

35. Abortions were made legal on October 27 1967

36. Professor Roland Levinsky performs the UK's first successful bone marrow transplant on a child at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in 1979.

37. John and Rosemary Cox from the West Midlands lauched a campaign for a national register for people to donate their organs after their son Peter died in 1989 - he had asked for his organs to be used to help others. Five years later the NHS Organ Donor Register was launched.

38. More than 18 million people have signed up to the NHS Organ Donor Register.

39. NHS Direct was launched in 1998 and at its peak handled more than half a million calls per month. It was replaced by NHS 111 this year.

40. Following a number of high-profile deaths, and AIDS advertising campaign using images of tombstones and icebergs was launched in 1986.

41. The First keyhole surgery operation using 3D cameras took place at Manchester Royal Infirmary in April 2012.

42. Around one in eight newborn babies requires some kind of special care following birth, usually due to premature birth or low birth weight.

43. Breast screening was introduced in 1988, offering free mammograms to women over 50.

44. Eighteen-month-old Rhys Evans was the first person to have successful gene therapy to cure Severe Combined Immunodeficiency or 'bubble boy' disease at Great Ormond Street Hospital in 2002.

45. The NHS Plan in 2000 sets out targets to ensure no patient spends more than four hours in an accident and emergency (A&E) department from arrival to admission, transfer or discharge.

46. Foundation trusts were first introduced in 2004. There are now 112 across the country.

47. The NHS Bowel Cancer Screening Programme introduced in 2006 was one the first cancer screening programme in England to include men as well as women.

48. Around 50,000 people develop an irregular heartbeat each year. It's a major cause of strokes and heart attacks.

49. Babies were first given vaccinations against pneumococcal meningitis in 2006.

50. British pensioner Kenneth Crocker, 70, was the world's first patient to have heart surgery using a fully remote-controlled robotic arm. The operation took place at Glenfield Hospital, Leicestershire, in 2010.

51. Teenage girls aged 12 to 13 were offered vaccinations against human papilloma virus (HPV) to help prevent cervical cancer for the first time in 2008.

52. The amount of people enrolling at medical school rose by 58.7% between 1997/1998 and 2011/2012.

53. In comparison with the healthcare systems in Australia, Canada, Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand and USA, the NHS was found to be the second most impressive overall by the Commonwealth Fund in 2010.

54. The NHS deals with more than 1 million patients every 36 hours.

55. Over the past 10 years, the number of calls resulting in an emergency team arriving at the scene has almost doubled.

56. The average life expectancy for men in the UK is 78.2 years, for women it's 82.3 years

57. Hospital admissions linked to alcohol rose to 1.22 million in 2011/2012, a 51% increase from nine years earlier.

58. Latest NHS statistics show that 26% of women and 24% of men were obese in 2011.

59. The Care Quality Commission was launched in April 2009 to regulate the quality of services in health, mental health and adult social care.

60. Consultant otolaryngologist Mike Pringle fitted the UK's first single cochlear implant capable of giving sound in both ears.

61. In April 2011, researchers from Cambridge University successfully demonstrated for the first time, the potential of an artificial pancreas in preventing night-time hypoglycaemia in adults with diabetes.

62. Matthew Green, 40, became the first UK patient to receive an artificial plastic heart implant at Papworth Hospital, Cambridgeshire, in August 2011.

63. More than 600 real-life NHS nurses and other healthcare workers took part in the London 2012 Olympic Games opening ceremony

64. On 27 December 2012, a surgical team at Leeds General Infirmary carried out the UK’s first hand transplant operation on Mark Hill, 51, from Halifax.

65. In March this year, Ian Christie, 62, became the first person to receive a transplanted liver kept alive on a machine outside the body at King's College Hospital.