Reports suggest that an increase in national insurance contributions could be used for a post-pandemic boost for the NHS and to address long-term social care funding.

Sources suggest that the government is keen for the necessary legislation to be passed in the three weeks before the Commons breaks again for the party conference season, with the funding badged as a health and social care levy.

Senior figures from No 10, the Treasury and the Department of Health and Social Care are meeting to agree the size of the budget boost the NHS in England will receive in the next few years.

Despite Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s promise that the NHS would get ‘whatever it needs’, the NHS settlement is expected to be closer to £5 billion – in addition to the increase announced by Theresa May in 2018. This is just half the £10 billion that health service leaders are demanding.

Alongside an expected announcement on NHS funding, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is also likely to announce a much-delayed plan to fix the long-term funding of the social care system, which he first claimed to have ready when he became Prime Minister in 2019.

The proposal is widely expected to be based on the decade-old Dilnot review, which proposed imposing a lifetime cap on the amount individuals would have to pay for care.