Five hundred hospital consultants have called for private health insurance to be made compulsory as part of a radical rethink of how the health service is funded.
According to a report, the move would amount to abandoning the UK in its present form.
The group, called Doctors for Reform, has taken out a full page add in the Times calling for funding to be turned over to `social insurance', based on the European model of health insurance.
Insurance companies sell packages of health insurance, but those unable to pay have their premiums subsidised or fully funded by the state.
One of the group's founders, Professor Karol Sikora, said: "The NHS as we know it has had its day. You can fiddle about with it and patch it up, but with an ageing population and hi-tech healthcare, something has to give."
