None of the three major parties have pledged enough in social care funding to fix the ongoing crisis, a health think-tank has concluded.
The Health Foundation calculated that stabilising the current social care system by addressing demand pressures and increasing staff pay in line with the NHS would cost £4.7bn by 2023/24.
It also estimated that restoring access to 2010/11 levels of service would require around £8.1bn extra investment by 2023/24 on top of this £4.7bn.
The Conservative Party manifesto has pledged an extra £1.1bn for the social care system while the Lib Dems have promised to invest £2.9bn.
Both of these fall short of the £12.8bn required to return social care investment to 2010/11 levels.
Labour has committed to spending £4.2bn on the social care system and £6.9bn on free personal care, which brings its total pledge up to £11.1bn.
Director of research and economics at the Health Foundation, Anita Charlesworth, said: ‘While all the parties have agreed in principle that there is an urgent need to reform social care to address the fundamental unfairness of the current system, only Labour has set out any concrete proposals for reform, pledging free personal care.
‘But our calculations show that none of the parties have pledged enough funding to restore levels of access to 2010/11 levels, prior to cuts to services.'
