Parties needs to stop using the NHS as a political football and devise a cross-party solution to the NHS funding crisis, MP Jason McCartney has said.

The Colne Valley Conservative has proposed a Royal Commission to investigate sustainable ways of funding the NHS.

The NHS’s £22bn deficit is the largest financial challenge the service has ever faced.

Increasing numbers of elderly people, more expensive treatments and clinical staff shortages are pushing the NHS to breaking point.

The service has been top of the political agenda with parties using the issue to score points over their opponents in Parliament.

But Mr McCartney says an apolitical, cross-party approach is necessary to deliver sustained improvements in the NHS.

He said: “So much energy and time is spent on making the NHS a political football.

“Now is the time to have those conversations.

“An independent commission with all political parties signing up will have the best chance of protecting our vital service well into the future.

“We need a conversation about what we want from our NHS and what we are prepared to pay for.”

The commission would consist of MPs from all parties along with NHS experts.

Over two years it would, among other issues, discuss how taxation and spending could be adjusted to create a sustainable NHS.

MPs from all parties would then sign up to follow the recommendations of the commission’s report.

Other MPs have expressed interest in the proposal including former Lib Dem health minister Norman Lamb and doctor and Conservative MP Andrew Murrison.

Norman Lamb. Pic: Rowan Griffiths

Mr McCartney said he was hoping his plan would interest former GP and Health Select Committee chair Sarah Woollaston who has been a vocal critic of current Government health policy.

The Colne Valley MP said parliamentary debates on the NHS had been ‘puerile’ and characterised by ‘shouting and point scoring.’

But he said he believed a cross-party commission could work.

Mr McCartney said: “There are sensible MPs on all sides of the House that are willing to take the politics out.

“There are some deep thinkers.”

He added: “We are trying to find a way to focus successive governments on giving us the best chance of an NHS that we all deserve.”

A Royal Commission on NHS spending was set up under Harold Wilson ’s Labour government in 1975.

It recommended that the administration of the NHS should be simplified by eliminating, in most cases, a tier of management.

As a result Area Health Authorities were abolished in 1982.