Britain’s biggest pensioner organisation, the National Pensioners Convention (NPC), has warned that this week’s long awaited green paper on care must pass five key tests if it is to tackle the crisis currently affecting the service.

Research from the NPC, entitled 'No More Suffering in Silence', has identified the following issues that need addressing if care services are be fit for the 21st century:

•Ending the means-testing of care and the postcode lottery of  charges
•Improving the quality and availability of services
•Providing greater financial support to carers
•Establishing caring as a proper profession with appropriate pay and conditions
•Pooling the risk and cost of care across the whole population to provide services free at the point of need

Dot Gibson, NPC general secretary said: “Care in the UK is in crisis. 

For year’s it has been the Cinderella service of the welfare state – under funded and overlooked. This long awaited green paper must not miss the opportunity to put this right. But it will only do so if it improves the quality of the service, ends the unfairness of means- testing and shares the cost of care amongst the population as a whole.

“Currently the annual cost of home care stands at about £1.3bn, whilst residential care reaches £15.6bn. Every year thousands of older people have to sell their homes to pay for this care and when the money runs out the burden falls on hard-pressed families. As a result, around 3m carers are currently saving the state an estimated £87bn in unpaid care – and they too need greater support and financial help.

“This is a once in a generation opportunity to treat the most vulnerable members of our society with dignity and respect, and the government must ensure that the green paper quickly becomes legislation that can be  on the statute books before the end of this Parliament.

"Anything less will be a terrible betrayal of Britain’s pensioners and their families.”