BRITAIN’S biggest social care overhaul since 1948 could put thousands of disabled and elderly people at risk, charities warned yesterday.

The Care Act 2014 came into force yesterday, introducing new, less variable criteria determining when local authorities will have to provide people with support.

But the Care and Support Alliance (CSA), a coalition of more than 80 charities, warned that an estimated £4.3 billion social care funding shortage by the end of the decade would leave thousands of disabled and older people at risk of losing out on vital help.

“Chronic underfunding of social care has seen dramatic year-on-year rationing of support for older and disabled people and their carers, excluding hundreds of thousands of people from the support they desperately need,” said CSA chairman Richard Hawkes.

“Ultimately, social care is an election issue and whoever forms the next government needs to urgently address the crisis in care funding, as well as in the health system.

“Anything else is simply a false economy and the reforms being implemented from today are built on sand and unable to live up to their promises.”

New regulations also include an annual cap on personal care costs of £72,000, excluding accommodation, and councils will have a new duty to provide preventative services.

The National Pensioners Convention (NPC), Britain’s biggest pensioner organisation, described the changes as “more window-dressing than practical support for older people and their carers.”

NPC general secretary Dot Gibson said: “What’s the use of having national criteria for accessing services when most local authorities only now offer support to those with the most severe needs?

“Help and support at a lower level is also vital to help prevent conditions getting worse, but £1.2bn worth of cuts to social care budgets in the last five years means this layer of support has simply disappeared for around a million older people across the country.

“Our social care system is in crisis and nothing in these changes is going to improve that for the vast majority of people.”