THE Tories’ pledge, four years ago today, to fix the social care crisis has taken society’s most vulnerable on a “wild goose chase,” a coalition of charities has warned.

The Care and Support Alliance (CSA) said millions of older and disabled people have been left struggling to get the care they need as promises of support for the sector are shelved, diluted or dropped.

Rishi Sunak vowed to keep his former boss Boris Johnson’s 2019 manifesto pledge that the Conservatives would “fix the crisis in social care once and for all” in his maiden speech as prime minister last October.

But the CSA said there have been “U-turns, delays and watering down,” and is concerned that “social care reform has stalled once again on the promise’s fourth anniversary.”

The alliance of more than 60 of England’s leading organisations campaigning for a properly funded care system also lamented the scrapping of the Health and Social Care Levy last year and the delay of adult social care charging reforms, including changes to the means test and £86,000 cap on personal care costs, from October 2023 to October 2025.

CSA chairwoman and Age UK director Caroline Abrahams said: “Since Boris Johnson pledged to fix social care four years ago we have all been on a wild goose chase as one government policy after another has been announced with a fanfare, only to be subsequently shelved, diluted or dropped.

“The transformational change in care provision that older people need to see — and that was promised to them — is yet to materialise, though with our ageing population it is needed more than ever.”

CSA co-chairwoman Jackie O’Sullivan, also a director at Mencap, added: “It beggars belief that the government has halved funding to support the training, skills and wellbeing for the social care workforce.

“Saying that social care is in urgent need of reform is easy but delivering on their promise has proved to be beyond the government.”

Emily Holzhausen, director of policy and public affairs at Carers UK and co-chairwoman of the CSA, said it was “deeply disappointing” that the promise to fix social care “has not yet been delivered.”

Ministers denied funding for the adult social care sector had been removed or reallocated to the NHS after announcing social care workforce funding would be halved from a previously pledged £500 million earlier this year.