Campaigners have called for better social care funding after over 27,000 non NHS health workers received one-off payments of up to £3,000.

Mike Padgham, chair of the Independent Care Group, said it was unfair that staff who work in the independent sector will not get a similar pay boost, making it harder to recruit into the sector.

Padgham said: “Thousands of nurses and care workers who work in social care, doing the same work, will not get the same pay increases as their counterparts doing NHS work and that isn’t right.

“It is unfair on staff doing the same job and will make it harder to recruit into social care as the disparity between our workforce and those benefiting from NHS pay continues to grow. At a time when we already have 152,000 vacancies in the social care sector, that is not going to be helpful.”

The care chief predicted the number of people unable to receive care – currently at 1.6 million – would double.

His warning came after a survey last week revealed public satisfaction levels with social at a record low.

Padgham said: “The reason for that is probably that there is less and less of it available, because of the crisis the sector is in. It is a wake-up call to the government that the public isn’t satisfied with social care – or with NHS services which came in at 24% satisfied – and that they must do something about it.”