Britain would end up squandering billions on a new health service bureaucracy if Ukip leader Nigel Farage gets his way, experts warned yesterday.

They hit out after the ex-City banker turned party chief confirmed that he wanted to scrap government funding and usher in an insurance-based system.

So far his proposals have been kept on a back-burner, he told the BBC.

But he added: “There is no question that healthcare provision is going to have to be very much greater in 10 years than it is today, with an ageing population, and we’re going to have to find ways to do it.”

Labour shadow health secretary Andy Burnham said: “Ukip claim to stand up for working people but in reality they are more Tory than the Tories.”

And alarmed health experts warned against Mr Farage’s continental-style plan.

Health Emergency campaign director Dr John Lister said: “Pro-rata they spend a lot more on health than we do — it’s a very inefficient system.

“If someone says they’re going to favour that kind of system then they’ve got to be in favour of spending a lot more money.”

The top three most costly systems in the EU are the Netherlands, France and Germany, which spend between 11.6 per cent and 12 per cent of GDP a year on a labyrinth of insurers and private or independent hospitals.

Britain only spends 9.6 per cent but gets more per pound because the NHS offers “much better value,” Mr Lister said.

Fresh evidence of Ukip support for NHS privatisation follows leaked footage of Mr Farage saying he would feel “more comfortable” funnelling cash to insurers than “giving £100 billion a year to central government.”

Pro-workers’ rights alliance No2EU co-ordinator Brian Denny said: “Ukip is not opposed to the corporate takeover of all our public services.

“When it says that the EU is overbearing it is also saying that all effective government needs to be replaced by the private sector which, ironically, is the same message coming out of Brussels.”