Doctors' leaders have accused the Government of being in "denial" over the funding crisis facing the NHS.

Claiming that the NHS is fully-funded is a "fantasy", the British Medical Association (BMA) said.

The doctors' union said the health service was facing "cuts and efficiencies" despite ministerial claims of increased spending.

The BMA, which is in conflict with the Department of Health over a new contract for junior doctors, said the health system is under unprecedented pressure.

Speaking at an urgent meeting called by doctors' leaders to discuss the "funding and workforce crisis across the UK health service", Dr Mark Porter, chairman of council at the BMA, said the Government had "put the squeeze" on hospitals, general practice and doctors.

"It is a health service with a revenue larger than the GDP of many countries but which would struggle to get a credit rating - which suffers from debt, but is crippled by denial," he said.

He said: "The Chancellor speaks of a 'fully-funded' NHS but has come up with less than a third of the extra £30 billion in England alone that he admits it needs.

"Stop and reflect on that for a moment. A government claiming to increase resources while the mathematically competent can see that it's all cuts and efficiencies.

"His claims are fantasy, but so too are his solutions.

"He says we just need to be more efficient. So much more efficient that £22 billion worth of work that we do apparently won't exist, or won't cost anything, in four years' time.

"That sounds like a lot of patients who will no longer need treating. Is the Chancellor hoping they'll all move to Australia with the junior doctors?

"He was warned that such a scale of efficiencies simply couldn't be found. We have looked, my word, we have looked. And we haven't found anything remotely matching that.

"Instead, they've put the squeeze on hospitals. They receive less for every patient they treat. And every year, their deficits grow. So the health service uses new money to pay off old debts.

"They've put the squeeze on general practice, which they thought could make do with less and less of the share of healthcare resources and do more and more. We can only hope that situation will now improve.

"They've put the squeeze on doctors. Every year we are expected to do more. Every year, in real terms, we are paid less."

He added: "We have a government that promises, and expects, the impossible. That ignores the inconvenient. That favours coercion over reason.

"It is a government that has allowed piecemeal privatisation of services to destabilise the NHS, a government to which the dogma of the market matters more than its moral responsibility to ensure an integrated whole.

"It is this same, fatal sense of detachment that we see in its plans, or rather non-plans, for seven-day services."

Dr Porter added: "Other countries may fail to deliver fair and comprehensive healthcare, because they lack the political will.

"Others had such a system, but lost it through war or economic trauma. Are we going to be the first country on earth to lose it through sheer unmitigated carelessness?"

Sir Michael Marmot, director of the Institute of Health Equity and president of the World Medical Association, told the meeting: "If demand is going up and funding is not increasing, there is going to be more pressure on quality of care."

He said closing children's centres is a "very bad idea" and tackling child poverty will make more of a difference to reading and maths scores at age seven than testing pupils.

"It is Government policy to increase inequality and to make things harder for families with children, and that will have an adverse impact on the health of children, the health of those children when they become adults and the health of the parents that are trying to make ends meet," he said.

Sir Michael added: "Cover your ears, I have some shocking news. Welfare spending improves health and reduces inequality."