Everyone agrees that social care has always been the poor relation to hospital care—starved of funds despite a huge surge in the elderly population. And it’s seen as unfair—hospital care is free to all, but families with savings must pay for social care themselves.

So, many people argue that social care should become part of the National Health Service and be provided free to everyone.

But this idea is utterly impractical.

Though much social care is already financed through taxation, most is delivered privately. That’s quarter of a million places in care homes 190,000 in nursing homes—plus all the care delivered to people’s doors. If the NHS took that over, it would be the biggest nationalisation since the 1940s. The compensation bill for care homes alone would be over £30 billion, the running cost would be over £5 billion a year, and the NHS would grow to 2 million employees.

Nor does it solve the core problem that 80% of our care homes are old and no longer meet current standards—with narrow corridors and poky rooms without bathrooms. Reckon on another £20 billion for rebuilding. Would taxpayers be happy with that, when only a third of them will need any social care at all? Unlikely.

And if social care became free, millions more people would demand it. Like all those thousands who presently look after elderly or frail relatives at home. That addition to already growing demand would overwhelm the system.

Universally free social care simply isn’t the answer.