The report accused NHS England and DHSC officials of a ‘lack of fresh thinking and decisive action'.

While welcoming the committee's recommendations on the Government's ‘three big shifts', chief executive Matthew Taylor said the NHS Confederation ‘took some issue' with its assessment of NHS productivity.

Acknowledging more needed to be done, Taylor said ‘we should not underplay the progress that has been made on this front', citing productivity levels at ‘double the level' of those pre-pandemic.

Taylor also countered the report's allegations that progress towards digital had been ‘glacial' citing the introduction of virtual wards and other innovations.

He said criticisms towards NHS England and DHSC officials were ‘unfair', adding: ‘We see committed individuals working towards the Government's reform agenda, often in difficult circumstances given the state of the public finances.'

Saffron Cordery, interim chief executive, NHS Providers, said leaders of NHS trusts were striving to ‘make the most of every pound going into services while doing everything they can to provide safe, high-quality care and get the best possible value for patients and taxpayers'.

Cordery added: ‘After many years of underfunding and severe staff shortages, trust leaders and teams are working flat out to improve services to see patients as quickly as possible.'

Director of policy at The Health Foundation, Hugh Alderwick, said that while it may be ‘tempting to tempting to blame officials and accounting rules, the root causes of these problems are political'.

Alderwick added the report was right that current assumptions on NHS productivity were ‘overly optimistic'.

‘The question for the new Government is what package of investment and policy change they will offer the NHS to help achieve these ambitious productivity targets – or even get close to them,' he said.

Nuffield Trust senior policy analyst Sally Gainsbury said the report had been right to highlight ‘dysfunctional budget setting in health and social care', adding: ‘We welcome the committee's recommendation that ‘meaningful indicative budgets' should be set no later than Christmas each year, but for such budgets to be genuinely meaningful, they also need to be realistic.'