THE NHS needs a cash injection of around £8.5 billion a year over the next four years to improve the service, experts have said.

The figure is more than three times the £2.5bn promised in the Spring Budget.

A BMJ Commission on the Future of the NHS report said that amount, even alongside a £3.4bn investment over three years to improve productivity through digital transformation “certainly will not make up the significant shortfall that the NHS now faces.”