ACTION to end the social care crisis must finally be taken, Prime Minister Andy Burnham pledged today, announcing an outline commitment to a national care service.

Continuing his run of significant early initiatives, Mr Burnham announced the speeding up of the latest review into social care and reform to pay and training across the sector, including progress on a fair pay agreement.

He also held talks with the Tory and Liberal Democrat parties in an effort to achieve a cross-party consensus on the issue, with limited prospects of success given strident Conservative opposition to any extra taxation to fund change.

Downing Street said the core principles of the national care service would include allowing “people to move seamlessly between hospitals, home care and community services” being fully funded, starting with prevention and ensuring social, primary and community care work together in support of people’s needs.

Mr Burnham’s commitment to better treatment of staff in social care was broadly welcomed by trade unions.

Unison general secretary Andrea Egan said: “The Prime Minister’s right that solving staffing issues is key to fixing the crisis in social care.

“Improved pay, on par with staff employed by the NHS, and a better career path are vital to improve the status of the job and attract people to the profession.

“There must be an urgent rethink on how international staff are being treated. Plans to push migrant care workers out of the UK need to be scrapped.

“They’re looking after people with complex needs and some of society’s most vulnerable people. They should be better rewarded, not vilified. Without them, the system would collapse,” Ms Egan added.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Britain’s social care system is a national disgrace.

“It has been turned into a cash cow for profiteers making money on the back of people’s suffering. Fixing social care will need a serious plan with real money, that puts workers, pensioners and everyday people first, not the profiteers.”

Ms Graham added: “The end goal must be to build a publicly owned national care service that both invests in care workers, so they have the decent pay, respect and secure jobs they deserve, and gives our older population their dignity.”

And TUC general secretary Paul Nowak welcomed the announcements, but warned “the foundation to success of any reforms is improving pay and conditions for the workforce through the Fair Pay Agreement — and improving progression routes through training.”

On the treatment of staff, Mr Burnham said: “We will not get the care service we all want until we improve the strength and the capability of care at the very front of the service.

“And that means lifting up the social care workforce as best we possibly can in terms of pay, but also in terms of training and the wider support we give them; the security of their roles.

“And that is the commitment I’m giving today.”

Mr Burnham said any plan would be “fully funded” but recommitted to Labour’s manifesto pledges not to raise key taxes.

“I think it is possible from existing budgets to do much more,” he said, citing unnecessary hospital stays costing the NHS around £2.5 billion a year.

The Prime Minister, whose own father suffers from Alzheimer’s, also promised to “put what political capital I have on the table, and it could be it wears down that political capital in some ways.

“But I’m prepared to do it because this has gone on too long. The risks of failing to act are too great,” he said, appealing for a change in political and media culture so the issue could be addressed.

“I think there’s only one group really to blame, and that’s my generation of politicians,” Mr Burnham conceded. “It’s a major dereliction of public duty that Parliament has not faced up to something so fundamental to life as this.”

Cross-bench peer Baroness Louise Casey has been instructed to conclude her review — by some counts the 22nd into the problem — in a year’s time, 12 months earlier than planned.

Mr Burnham also said that any moves to introduce assisted dying, which was supported in the Commons in the last parliamentary session but blocked in the Lords, should wait until better social and palliative care was available.

Care Not Killing, which campaigns against assisted dying, welcomed the announcement, with its spokesman Gordon Macdonald saying: “The Prime Minister is absolutely right.

“Trying to force through a deeply controversial Bill, legalising assisted suicide, when palliative and social care are broken, would put pressure on the elderly, vulnerable and disabled people to end their lives prematurely.”

The Greens and the SNP protested at being left out of the cross-party talks. Social care is a devolved issue, but the SNP fears being affected if taxes are raised to fix the system in England.