Britain’s medics are rewriting their plans for a full-scale war as they learn lessons from the conflict in Ukraine, a leading NHS trauma surgeon has said.

Evolutions in drone warfare and a return of First World War-style superbugs have presented new challenges as Western countries take steps to put their health systems on a war-footing, according to Dr Shehan Hettiaratchy.

Dr Hettiaratchy, the lead trauma surgeon at Imperial College Healthcare, suggested the NHS would have to be all but shut down to only deal with war casualties if Britain was to be dragged into a full-scale conflict.

He warned the health service would also be worse off compared to its European counterparts because it lacks the same headroom to expand, unlike France and Germany.

Last year, General Sir Roland Walker, the head of the Army, warned Britain must be ready to fight a war against Russia in three years.

“I think it’s really hard to prepare… I’m going to say it’s not possible to prepare, because the Ukrainians weren’t prepared and the Ukrainian military clearly had spent a lot of time thinking hard about if there was to be an invasion from Belarus, from Russia,” Dr Hettiaratchy said on the fringes of a DGA Group event with the UK and Ukrainian governments in support of Kyiv’s healthcare system.

“If we get to a scenario where we are having that level of casualties and that kind of war-fighting, the health system would be only doing that. That’s where we’re scaled at now,” he added.

“If you look at us compared to other European countries – Covid showed it – we have less capacity, less redundancy in our health system compared to other European partners.”