• Spending plans to March 2015 ‘are tighter for the NHS than any delivered in the last 50 years’
• Cuts will be ‘far from pain free’ warns NHS chief

PUBLISHED: 02:13 EST, 4 July 2012 | UPDATED: 03:59 EST, 4 July 2012

The NHS urgently need to reconsider what services should remain free as it faces a decade of austerity, financial experts said.

Researchers from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) claim NHS spending to 2015 will be the tightest four-year period in the last 50 years.

The research concludes that ‘serious thought’ must be given to NHS spending including reconsidering which services should be freely available or thelevel of taxation needed to finance the service in the future.

The authors of the study said that continuing the real freeze in English NHS spending between 2015 and 2017 would mean cutting spending on other public services by an average 2.3 per cent a year.

NHS spending in the UK reached