Pensioners called on the government on Monday to introduce a national care service funded by general taxation along the lines of the NHS.

The new Fair Care Campaign was set up by the National Pensioners Convention (NPC) to combat the growing crisis in elderly care.

It follows numerous reports recently that have highlighted the failures in the current social care system and comes ahead of a government white paper seeking to integrate funding and commissioning between services, expected later this year.

NPC analysis revealed a postcode lottery of charges for care at home, inadequate standards in both nursing and home care, a lack of proper training and qualifications among care staff and little support for family carers.

A false separation between NHS funded medical care and means-tested social care has also removed thousands of frail elderly people from receiving free care, the NPC said.

It argues that creating a national care service, similar to the NHS, would provide free home and nursing care, access to services to a wider group of people, improved terms and conditions for staff, a programme of modernisation of residential homes and improved regulation.

“Successive governments have ducked the issue about how we can improve the care of Britain’s most vulnerable pensioners,” said NPC general secretary Dot Gibson.

“The endless stories in the media can often reveal how grim life in a care home can be and how care in your own home is sometimes shockingly inadequate.

“Everyone agrees that the current system is bust but no-one is willing to put forward the only real way of improving the situation. A national care service would end all these problems.”

She said the move would stop people from having to sell their homes to pay for care and establish the principle that society has a responsibility – just like with the NHS, education and the armed forces – of all paying in so that those who need help can draw out.

A combination of savings from other areas of care expenditure as well as reprioritising existing government spending would also help fund a national care service.

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