Chris Leslie, Labour’s shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, responding to George Osborne’s article on the NHS in The Guardian, said:

“Nobody will believe a word of this. The Tories have tried to announce this five times before, but they still can’t say where the money would come from. And they haven’t been able to say how they will pay for any of their panicky promises over the last 24 hours.

"George Osborne’s extreme plan to double the pace of spending cuts next year means he cannot credibly claim to protect the NHS. Other countries which have tried to make cuts on this scale have ended up cutting their health services. That’s why he wasn’t able to announce any extra NHS funding in his Budget last month

"And the Tories have £10 billion of unfunded tax promises which they also can’t say how they will pay for and are ahead of the NHS in the queue.

"Only Labour has a fully-funded plan to raise an extra £2.5bn a year to recruit 20,000 more nurses, 8,000 more GPs and 3,000 more midwives – paid for by a mansion tax on properties over £2m, closing tax loopholes and a levy on the tobacco companies.

"As Ed Balls has said, Labour will do whatever it takes to save our NHS. But after their broken promises of the last five years, nobody will trust the Tories with our NHS ever again.”