UKIP's health spokesperson has said the party would reject its leader Nigel Farage's support of a private insurance model to replace the NHS.
Farage had told the BBC that the idea of replacing the NHS with private insurance system is "a debate that we're all going to have to return to".
The idea had been suggested before and been rejected by UKIP at a vote, and a leaked video from 2012 showed him putting the idea to some of the party's supporters.
A subsequent statement from UKIP's website said: "Talking to the BBC's Nick Robinson, UKIP Leader Nigel Farage reiterated UKIP's health policy, that healthcare will remain free at the point of delivery, and that nobody should be charged to see their GP, something that senior Labour figures have floated in the past.
"Everyone acknowledges that a growing and ageing population brings with it challenges in the funding of high quality free healthcare and that is something that needs to be addressed.
"Nigel Farage is being totally honest and in no way takes away from the party policy that UKIP and Nigel are committed to the NHS being free at the point of delivery and unshackled by private finance initiatives."
Meanwhile in a separate statement, Louise Bours MEP, health spokesperson for UKIP said: "Nigel is entitled to his opinion and others are entitled to theirs, we don't whip people into all thinking the same thing, like the establishment parties.
"As he has said before, he raised the idea for discussion a while ago, the party discussed at and rejected it.
"I am certain that if the party discuss it again, we will reject it again. The vast majority of Ukip members, the British public and I will always favour a state funded NHS."
