Health sector experts have said that there could be more rationing of health services and an increase in paid health care under the NHS as the state-run health system undergoes a decade of austerity.

Experts at the Institute for Fiscal Studies have said that the coming few years will be most difficult sine the 1950, when the fees for dental care and prescription fees were introduced in the health care system. They said that an increase in taxes among other measures could also be a part of the solution.

They said that the decision on the NHS will also have an impact on other public services. It is believed that the NHS alone accounts for a quarter of public spending in the UK. The IFS, which carried out the review on behalf of the Nuffield Trust, has studied various spending scenarios for the NHS in the coming years.

The report says that the NHS will get settlements from 2015 until 2022 of somewhere between 0% and 2.4% a year to ensure that the health sending’s proportion to the national income stays the same over the years.