Proposals to make patients in England show their passports to get NHS care go "too far", leading doctors have said.

The comments from the British Medical Association (BMA) come as it emerged that health officials are examining whether patients should have to show identification to get some elements of NHS care.

Labour said it would oppose the proposition, adding that NHS staff are "not border guards".

Chris Wormald, permanent secretary at the Department of Health - which is responsible for the NHS in England, told the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that the NHS has got a "lot further to go" when it comes to reclaiming money from foreign visitors.

He admitted that there were challenges in the identification of people who should be charged for elements of NHS care.

Some trusts are trialling asking patients to bring ID before getting treatment, he said.

He told MPs the Department of Health is looking into whether more trusts should go down a similar route.

Dr Mark Porter, chairman of BMA council, said: "Ensuring eligibility for NHS services is always important, but these proposals go much too far and it is unlikely they could ever be turned into a serious policy that would be accepted by patients and the public, that is, showing your passport before undergoing treatment."

Labour's shadow home secretary Diane Abbott said: "Our public sector staff are not border guards.

"The real problem here is government cuts. Instead, we are invited to believe that foreigners are a significant problem in the NHS, without much evidence.”

The Committee drew on official figures released earlier this year which show that £674m was charged to the UK government for the care of British citizens in EEA countries in 2014 to 2015.

But the amount charged for the care of EEA nationals in British hospitals was just £49 million.

Mr Wormald said the figure was "hugely driven" by the number of UK pensioners who live abroad.

Yesterday, he told MPs that the Department of Health had an "awful lot more to do before we could hand on heart say we are doing our duty to the taxpayer in this area".

He said officials were looking at a range of measures to encourage the identification of people who should be paying for NHS care, including whether all patients should have to show ID.

He said: "We are looking at whether trusts should do more on upfront identification.

"The general question - are we looking at whether trusts should proactively ask people to prove identity? Yes, we are looking at that.

"Now it is obviously quite a controversial thing to do to say to the entire population you now have to prove identity."

Labour's shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth added: "It's testament to the desperate squeeze on our NHS finances that we have civil servants publicly talking about patients being forced to show not one but two forms of identification before they are treated.

A Downing Street spokesman said that requesting patients' passports was a practice being tried in some NHS trusts, and would be considered as part of a consultation exercise currently under way.