Chancellor Gordon Brown yesterday made an historic and far-reaching commitment to the NHS - and called for the nation to unite behind his vision for the future of health care.

In his sixth Budget, he announced a one per cent increase in National Insurance contributions as part of a plan to fund £40bn of investment in the NHS over the next five years.

Mr Brown's political gamble also involved freezing personal tax allowances as he banked on voters accepting the changes in exchange for the benefits of a 21st Century health service.

Mr Brown said his was "a Budget to make our NHS the best insurance policy in the world."

The increase in NI charges will be the first step to pay for future health spending - planned to increase by 7.4 per cent every year, from £65.4bn this year to £105.6bn in five years' time, taking the commitment well into the life of the next Parliament.

It was seen as a defining moment for the Labour Government, bringing the first major increases in direct taxation announced since Tony Blair came to power in 1997.

But Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith said Mr Brown had announced an old-style "tax and spend" Budget and predicted millions of families would be worse off.

Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy said the extra funding for the NHS was being promised five years too late.

But he added: "Most people will welcome this investment, provided they can see their money will get results."

Mr Brown announced several populist measures, including abolishing bingo tax and halving the duty paid on beer produced by the smallest brewers.

But it was the NHS funding boost that was the centrepiece of a Budget in which Mr Brown said he aimed to give a reformed NHS "a secure long-term financial foundation".

It promises to take UK health spending to above the European average of about 8.5 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP).

Launching its Chance to Live campaign in 1999, The Northern Echo called for an increase in the proportion of national income spent on healthcare - then 6.7 per cent - to bring it into line with our Continental neighbours.

Yesterday's historic announcement means that by 2007-8 Britain will have closed the funding gap, taking the proportion of GDP spent on health to 9.4 per cent.

Our campaign, which initially focused on demands for shorter waiting lists for patients needing heart bypass surgery, was prompted by the death of a 38-year-old father-of-two from Darlington.

Ian Weir, a photographer with The Northern Echo, died after a seven-month wait for a triple heart bypass operation.

Shortly before his death he wrote to Prime Minister Tony Blair asking: "For how much longer will I be alive?" Mr Weir could have had his operation within weeks had he paid £10,000 for private treatment.

Health Secretary Alan Milburn will cement the ground-breaking boost for the health service later today when he spells out the details of how the extra money will be spent.

Included among the measures are expected to be cash for coronary and cancer services, a massive recruitment drive for doctors and nurses, a major boost to the hospital building programme, and more resources for the care of the elderly.

Rejecting private health care, charging, or social insurance as alternative ways of increasing health funding, Mr Brown told MPs: "It is my hope that we can renew a shared national consensus around an NHS, freely accessible at the point of need, paid for from taxation."

To underpin the additional investment in health and other public services, the Government is to appoint two "super auditors" - one to monitor NHS spending and the other to oversee social services and social care spending - with annual reports to Parliament on how the cash is spent and how it has affected performance.

His announcement of the extra money came after the publication earlier in the day of a Treasury-commissioned report on the long-term funding needs of the NHS.

The report's author, former NatWest bank chief Derek Wanless, said the NHS budget would have to be increased to between £154bn and £184bn by 2022 if the service was to be transformed into a world class healthcare system for the 21st Century.

Mr Brown, in his 58-minute speech, also froze duty on petrol, beer, spirits and wine, along with road tax on cars, vans and lorries.

But he said "for public health reasons" he had decided on an increase of 6p for packet of 20 cigarettes.

Reacting to the Chancellor's pledges to improve the NHS, British Medical Association chairman Ian Bogle said: "This programme of investment offers real hope to the people of the UK who depend on the NHS, and the million people working in it who want the NHS to succeed."