The gap between the two has not been greater for the last 80 years, according to a study in the British Medical Journal.

Teams at the universities of Sheffield and Bristol calculated deaths before the age of 65 – considered premature – in areas of the top ten per cent down to the bottom ten per cent of wealth.

They said: “For every 100 people under the age of 65 dying in the best-off areas, 199 were dying in the poorest tenth of areas.

“This is the highest relative inequality recorded since at least 1921.

"When we looked at people aged under 75, for every 100 people dying in the best-off areas, 188 were dying in the poorest tenth of areas. That is the highest ratio of inequality recorded since at least 1990."

Inequalities in health between the rich and poor have persisted for decades and recent government efforts to reduce the gap have largely had little or no effect, the researchers said.

From the early peak between 1921 and 1930 when the ratio of premature deaths was 1.91 there was a steady decrease until the 1970s, probably due to improved medicine and the introduction of the National Health Service.

After that the ratio began to increase again and the trend has continued so that by the mid-2000s people in poor areas were twice as likely to die prematurely than those in rich areas.

Lead author Bethan Thomas, Research Fellow, at the University of Sheffield, wrote in the BMJ: "Inequalities in premature mortality between areas of Britain continued to rise steadily during the first decade of the 21st century.

"The last time in the long economic record that inequalities were almost as high was in the lead up to the economic crash of 1929 and the economic depression of the 1930s.

"The economic crash of 2008 might precede even greater inequalities in mortality between areas in Britain.

The previous government missed targets aimed at reducing the gap in health inequalities.