Following a stinging study that declared the health service to be in "critical condition," the prime minister will declare on Tuesday that the NHS must "reform or die."

Unacceptable waiting times for both scheduled and urgent care, increasing difficulty in seeing a general practitioner or dentist and cancer death rates lower than comparable countries have all been revealed by a landmark analysis, which paints a bleak picture of shrinking services.

Sir Keir Starmer is expected to describe the NHS's decline as "unforgivable" and promise a 10-year rescue plan which will be unveiled in spring.

The Prime Minister will say: "What we need is the courage to deliver long-term reform - major surgery not sticking plaster solutions. The NHS is at a fork in the road, and we have a choice about how it should meet these rising demands.

"Raise taxes on working people to meet the ever-higher costs of aging population - or reform to secure its future. We know working people can't afford to pay more, so it's reform or die."

Describing the planned overhaul as potentially "the biggest reimagining of our NHS since its birth", Sir Keir will vow to include NHS staff and patients in the process.

And he will outline "three big shifts" from analogue to digital, from care provided in hospitals to greater care in the community, and from sickness to prevention.

Sir Keir will add: "Only fundamental reform and a plan for the long term can turn around the NHS and build a healthy society. It won't be easy or quick. But I know we can do it."

The Government commissioned an independent review of the NHS - led by surgeon and former Labour health minister Lord Ara Darzi - after the election.

Over nine weeks, the independent peer examined more than 500 pages of evidence from charities, professional bodies and other organisations, received advice from a team of 75 experts, and analyses from the Department of Health and NHS England.

His 142-page report found that the NHS has been failing to deliver on many of its most important obligations to the public since 2015, with public satisfaction now at an all-time low.

Emergency care is "in an awful state" with one in 10 patients now waiting at least 12 hours to be seen in A&E, it said. Waiting lists for hospital procedures have ballooned from 2.4 million people in March 2010 to 7.6 million this June.

And the UK was found to have "appreciably higher cancer mortality than other countries". Treatments have become more sophisticated but "less timely". Meanwhile, access had deteriorated across every part of the health service, including general practice, dentistry and mental health.

Other key criticisms included that too much of the NHS budget is spent in hospitals - with this share increasing from 47 percent to 58 percent between 2006 and 2022.

Successive governments have pledged to shift care away from hospitals into the the community but "the reverse has happened", the report found.

Although focused on the NHS, it also warned that social care was in a "dire state" and a growing gap between people's needs and publicly funded social care was placing "an increasingly large burden on families and on the NHS".

This alarming landscape of decline comes as the NHS is facing rising demand due to an ageing population and more people living with multiple long-term conditions.

Social determinants of health - such as poor quality housing and low income - are also "moving in the wrong direction", the report added.

Lord Darzi, 64, said: "Although I have worked in the NHS for more than 30 years, I have been shocked by what I have found during this investigation - not just in the health service but in the state of the nation's health."

The peer identified three key "shocks" which hit the NHS over the last 15 years. Austerity during the 2010s meant spending "virtually flatlined", starving the NHS of capital funding and leaving it with crumbling buildings and outdated technology such as scanners.

This led to shortfall of £37 billion of capital investment, compared to what comparable countries spent during that period, the report found.

The second shock was the 2012 Health and Social Care Act introduced by Andrew Lansley, which was described as "a calamity without international precedent", the effects of which are still felt to this day.

Intended to increase choice and competition in the provision of NHS services, the reforms instead "imprisoned more than a million NHS staff in a broken system for the best part of a decade", Lord Darzi concluded. The third shock was the pandemic, "which came with reliance at an all-time low".

Despite the damning analysis, Lord Darzi insisted that the NHS's vital signs remained strong, with an "extraordinary depth of clinical talent" and passionate staff who are "the beating heart of the NHS".

He added: "Nothing that I have found draws into question the principles of a health service that is taxpayer funded, free at the point of use, and based on need not ability to pay. We cannot afford not to have the NHS, so it is imperative that we turn the situation around."

The report concluded that it would take longer than one parliamentary term to restore performance to acceptable levels and clear waiting lists.

Shadow health secretary Victoria Atkins last night called on the Government to "move from rhetoric to action". She said: "We will review this report carefully but it appears that Labour have missed an opportunity to put together meaningful plans for reform.

"We Conservatives recognise that investment has to be married with reform. This is why we brought forward long-term plans for productivity, tech, Pharmacy First, virtual wards, attracting pharmaceutical research and training and retaining staff. We did this whilst boosting investment in the NHS in real terms every single year.

"The Labour government will be judged on its actions. It has stopped new hospitals from being built, scrapped our social care reforms and taken money from pensioners to fund unsustainable pay rises with no gains in productivity. They need to move from rhetoric to action."

NHS chief executive Amanda Pritchard welcomed the findings and acknowledged the "unprecedented challenge" the health service was facing.

She added: "Our staff are treating record numbers of patients every day despite ageing equipment and crumbling buildings, a surge in multiple long-term illnesses, and managing the long-lasting effects of the pandemic.

"While teams are working hard to get services back on track, it is clear waiting times across many services are unacceptable and we need to address the underlying issues outlined in Lord Darzi's report so we can deliver the care we all want for patients."

Tim Mitchell, president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, said the report "articulated what those of us on the frontline see on a daily basis - an NHS unable to provide timely access to care on a routine basis, and a working environment which does not support staff to work at their best".

He added: "There is now a chorus of voices - from the Institute of Fiscal Studies to frontline health staff - calling for greater investment in our buildings as a key part of increasing capacity in the NHS.

Nuffield Trust chief executive Thea Stein said the "deeply troubling" report exposed "wide-ranging problems have been growing in plain sight for years".

She added: "The big question now is what happens next. The Government has an early opportunity to make good on long-argued points on dysfunctional NHS funding in its first Budget next month."