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EXCLUSIVE: the implications are clear. If we extrapolate to 2085 the NHS funding gap will be £1.9 trillion. As an accredited health economist and responsible user of compound interest calculations, I can reveal that this budget pressure equates to twenty times the NHS budget or three times total government spend. This is not as problematic as it seems. Thanks to the feelgood spirit of the 2012 Olympics, the level of commitment to maintaining a taxpayer funded NHS will extend well into the late 21st century. However the majority of the taxpayers will have to come from what we can designate as "subsidiary" countries. In layman's terms this means closing down all other government funded services in the UK and turning over the entire GDP of four moderately sized European economies to run our health service. By simply shutting down Portugal, Greece, Denmark and Ireland and funnelling this resource into our health services, it would provide ample money to run the NHS for most of the rest of this century. This equates to barely 15% of the EU - a far smaller percentage reduction than the 2000% efficiency challenge being faced by the health service alone over that period. If there is a more elegant solution to the funding gap I would like to hear it.