The NHS is expected to receive a funding boost of up to £30 billion in the spending review next week at the expense of other public services.
The Department of Health is set to be handed a 2.8% annual increase in its day-to-day budget over a three-year period.
The cash injection, which amounts to a rise of about £30 billion by 2028, or £17 billion in real terms, will see other areas including police and councils squeezed, The Times newspaper reported.
Sir Keir Starmer has pledged to ensure that by the next election 92% of patients in England waiting for planned treatment are seen within 18 weeks of being referred.
Latest NHS data suggests around 60% of people are currently seen in this time and figures released last month showed the overall number of patients on waiting lists had risen slightly from 6.24 million to 6.25 million.
Rachel Reeves has acknowledged that she had been forced to turn down requests for funding in a sign of the behind-the-scenes wrangling over her spending review.
She blamed the former Conservative government’s stewardship of the economy rather than her self-imposed fiscal rules, which include a promise to match day-to-day spending with revenues.
The Chancellor said despite a £190 billion increase in funding over the spending review period “not every department will get everything that they want next week and I have had to say no to things that I want to do too”.
On top of the increase in day-to-day spending, funded in part by the tax hikes Ms Reeves set out in her budget, looser borrowing rules will help support a £113 billion investment package.
Economists have warned the Chancellor faces “unavoidably” tough choices when she sets out departmental spending plans on June 11 as she
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) think tank said defence and the NHS will dominate the review, raising the prospect of cuts to other unprotected departments.
Carl Emmerson, deputy director at the think tank, said on Saturday that any increase larger than 2.5% a year for the NHS budget would mean that departments excluding defence would be cut on average.
“So, that could be things like the kind of services local authorities provide, they might be seeing their grants from central government cut, potentially putting pressure on council tax,” he told LBC.
“Rachel Reeves is actually planning to borrow quite a lot over the next few years, she’s barely on course to have debt falling in five years’ time.
“The challenge is that if we get bad news on the economy, if we have other policies the Government wants to do, like making winter fuel payments more generous again, perhaps like relaxing the two-child limit come the October, November budget, I wouldn’t be surprised if she does need to put taxes up to make the sums add up at that point.”
The Conservatives have said the Chancellor is “scrambling to salvage her failing economic plan after the Prime Minister has made U-turn after U-turn, punching holes in her credibility”.
