Campaigners have called on Labour not to hide its plans for social care reforms ahead of the next general election.

The call from Mike Padgham, chair of the Independent Care Group, followed a report the party is planning to leave social care reforms out of its manifesto over fears they could be labelled as another ‘dementia tax’.

Padgham said: “If the Labour Party is serious about creating a National Care Service, about reforming social care and about giving the social care workforce the pay and conditions they deserve then they should be bold and upfront and say so in their manifesto.

“How much harder would it be to make these things a reality in government if they haven’t been promised to the electorate in a manifesto?”

Padgham said politicians were “terrified” to talk about social care reform costs but the country needed a “sensible conversation” about switching some resources from the NHS to social care.

“Money saved from unnecessary hospital care can be switched to properly fund social care and to meeting current and future demand for care, so the cost to the public purse might not be as high as people are fearing,” he said.

“What is vital is that the political parties come out and say what they plan to do for social care. Their initial plans might not be perfect but the longer we continue with inaction the worse the situation becomes – more and more people living without care, providers closing and people still having to sell their homes to pay for care.

“The case for reform is now overwhelming, we need our politicians to be brave and get on with it.”

The ICG is calling for five key social care reforms, which are:

•       Ring fence a percentage of GDP to be spent on providing social care to those who already receive it and the 1.6 million who can’t get it

•       Create a unified National Care Service, incorporating health and social care

•       Set a National Minimum Wage per hour for care staff on a par with NHS

•       Set up an urgent social care task force to oversee reform

•       Fix ‘fair price for care’ tariffs for things like care beds and homecare visits.