The Government believes that people needing care deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. We understand the urgency of reforming the system of social care to provide much more control to individuals and their carers, and to ease the cost burden that they and their families face.

• We will establish a commission on long-term care, to report within a year. The commission will consider a range of ideas, including both a voluntary insurance scheme to protect the assets of those who go into residential care, and a partnership scheme as proposed by Derek Wanless.

• We will break down barriers between health and social care funding to incentivise preventative action.

• We will extend the greater roll-out of personal budgets to give people and their carers more control and purchasing power.

• We will use direct payments to carers and better community-based provision to improve access to respite care.

• We will reform Access to Work, so disabled people can apply for jobs with funding already secured for any adaptations and equipment they will need.