The NHS’s plan to hire almost a million more staff over the next 13 years will force the Government to raise taxes, cut spending or borrow billions more, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has warned.

Analysis of the long-term workforce plan published by NHS England in June suggests the health service’s hiring will force the Treasury to find an extra £50bn by 2036, the think tank warned.

The NHS plans to grow its workforce from 1.5m in 2021-22 to around 2.3-2.4m by 2036-37.

Amanda Pritchard, NHS chief executive, said in June that the massive expansion of its workforces was necessary to cope with Britain’s ageing and increasingly sick population.

However, Max Warner from the IFS said the plans will entail “difficult decisions” for the Treasury as economic growth remains depressed.

He said: “[It] will require higher taxes, lower spending on other things or more borrowing, or some combination of the three. We can’t get away from those kinds of public finance realities.”

The plans would push up costs by 3.6pc every year, which would ultimately swell the size of the NHS budget by 70pc compared to today’s levels. The Government must find an extra £50bn in today’s money as a result.

Indicating the size of the challenge, the IFS said raising such a sum would be equivalent to raising all income tax rates by six percentage points or hiking VAT from 20pc to 27pc.