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.”

Nuffield Trust senior associate John Appleby and two colleagues warned annual spending on the NHS rose by just 1.2 per cent between 2010-20, compared to 6.2 per cent from 2000-10.

Analysis by the Office of Health Economics (OHE) separately found doctors’ pay in England has fallen by 25 per cent since 2008.

Researchers said the findings match what the British Medical Association (BMA) has been saying during doctors’ strikes over pay.

BMA junior doctors committee co-chair Dr Vivek Trivedi said: “Both the private and public sectors experienced a fall in pay in real terms after the financial crash in 2008.

“But in the private sector, which makes up 80 per cent of the UK workforce, we saw pay levels rebound relatively quickly, while the public sector bore the brunt of austerity.

“And within the public sector, doctors have taken a specifically harder hit — so the level of pay erosion has been even stronger.”

Royal College of Nursing England director Patricia Marquis said ministers have failed to deliver the funding needed to meet demand.

The Department of Health and Social Care said: “We are committed to supporting the NHS and building a healthcare system that is faster, simpler and fairer.”