The best present you could give the NHS? End the social care crisis

Both the Conservatives and Labour have talked a good game on care reform for 25 years, but their hearts have not been in it, writes Andrew Grice. Now it the time to change that

The ailing social care sector is a victim of our playground politics (PA)

The best birthday present the NHS could get on its 75th anniversary today is not an injection of billions of pounds, or even the magical reforms everyone is demanding. The best thing our politicians could do for it would be to finally end the crisis in social care.

They know that if the NHS was being created today, social care would be part of it. Yet the ailing sector is a victim of our playground politics: Labour justified branding Theresa May’s reform a “dementia tax” on the grounds the Tories dubbed Andy Burnham’s national care service a “death tax” seven years earlier.

Although both the Conservatives and Labour have talked a good game on care reform for 25 years, their heart has not been in it. Jeremy Hunt admits his biggest regret as health secretary was not having a 10-year plan for social care as well as the NHS. But, as chancellor, he postponed Boris Johnson’s promised £86,000 cap on the amount an individual contributes to their care costs. That now looks dead as Labour is unlikely to resuscitate it if it wins power.